FORMER COBB GOP CHAIR DENDY PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO CHILD MOLESTATION CHARGES
Jon Gargis MDJ 9/29/16
MARIETTA — The former Cobb County Republican Party chairman facing charges that he molested two young boys is slated to face a jury in November after a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf at an arraignment Thursday.
Joe Dendy, 72, was in a wheelchair as he was brought into Superior Court Judge Adele Grubbs’ courtroom Thursday morning for his arraignment, where he was formally presented with the charges against him.
Dendy himself did not enter a plea during the hearing, which lasted about five minutes, but rather had a plea of not guilty entered for him by Grubbs as he did not have legal representation to counsel him at the hearing.
Attorney William McKenney, who had represented Dendy at his June 3 bond hearing, had been listed in Cobb Superior Court records as Dendy’s active attorney — a fact Grubbs pointed out during the hearing — but McKenney told the judge that he had not been retained in the case. Grubbs had presided over that hearing and had denied Dendy bond.
“I’ve had no contact with him since the last bond hearing, your honor.” McKenney told the judge. “I’m here really at the instruction of the court, as an officer of the court, to explain I am not representing Mr. Dendy in any fashion. I’ve not been retained in the underlying indictments that are before the court.”
Dendy said little during his hearing, but did affirm that McKenney was no longer representing him and requested a circuit defender to represent him.
With a not guilty plea entered, Dendy’s case was placed on Grubbs’ trial calendar. Court officials also set a hearing date of Nov. 3 for pretrial motions in the case.
Dendy was arrested at his west Cobb home in May on charges that he molested two boys in separate incidents in his home occurring as far back as 2007, according to a warrant issued at the time.
In August, Dendy was indicted on 13 charges: four counts of cruelty to children in the first degree and one count each of aggravated sexual battery and aggravated child molestation. The earliest alleged incident, which the indictment said occurred sometime in late 2004 to late 2006, saw Dendy take one of the boys into a Cobb department store in order to commit a sexual act.
Another alleged incident of child molestation involved the same boy at Dendy’s Creekview Court home sometime between December 2007 and December 2009. The boy was around 13 years old at the time, according to the warrant filed regarding the incident.
The boy was the focus of another child molestation charge involving an alleged sexual incident that occurred inside a closet at Burnt Hickory Baptist Church in Powder Springs, where Dendy and his wife, Billie Dendy, have been members since 1974, according to Billie Dendy’s testimony at her husband’s bond hearing in June.
The second boy named in the indictment was 4 years old when he was allegedly molested in late December 2011, with the other boy named in the indictment witnessing the incident, according to a warrant in the case.
Dendy remains in the Cobb jail after being denied bond by Grubbs back in June.
