It was supposed to be a quiet evening at the movies with her 5-year-old grandson. Instead, 49-year-old Nickie Sledge, a businessowner and grandmother from Lithonia, Georgia, found herself handcuffed, strip-searched, and jailed for three days. She was accused of crimes committed by a white woman from Kentucky she had never met.
The December 2024arrest, a case of mistaken identity so egregious that it has sparked outrage and legal action. The arrest began when deputies from the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office appeared at a Conyers movietheater, claiming her car had been hit in the parking lot.
The ruse lured Sledge outside, where she was confronted by deputies holding a warrant for “Nikki Sledge,” a white womanwanted for elder abuse and exploitation of a disabled person…