A Decatur attorney who spent nearly five decades practicing law in Georgia has lost his license for good, after the state’s highest court found he used stolen police crash data worth more than $170,000 to drum up personal injury clients. William Taylor Payne, who ran the Law Office of William T. Payne P.C. near East Ponce de Leon Avenue, was unanimously disbarred by the Supreme Court of Georgia on October 14.
Payne had been licensed to practice law in Georgia since 1977, according to court records cited by FOX 5 Atlanta. The disbarment, issued under docket number S26Y1490, cited violations of Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct 8.4(a)(2), which covers felony convictions carrying a maximum penalty of disbarment, and 9.1(a)(2), which governs the mandatory 60-day window for notifying the State Bar of a felony conviction, per the Supreme Court of Georgia’s own order.
The case traces back to September 2025, when Payne entered an Alford plea in DeKalb County Superior Court to one felony count of violating the Georgia RICO Act. An Alford plea allows a defendant to maintain innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence to convict. Prosecutors said Payne and three co-conspirators used stolen data to solicit personal injury clients and make money, according to the station’s report.
Stolen Crash Reports Fueled the Scheme
According to prosecutors, Payne and his co-conspirators used data valued at more than $170,000 pulled from the Georgia Electronic Accident Reporting System, which belongs to the DeKalb County Police Department, in 2015. The underlying criminal conduct spanned January 1, 2015, through August 13, 2015, and was charged under Georgia’s RICO statute, O.C.G.A. ยง 16-14-4, according to the Supreme Court of Georgia…