Former DeKalb County Superintendent Devon Horton was arrested Saturday after police officers determined a verbal dispute with his wife turned physical.
A spokesperson for the DeKalb County Police Department said Sunday that officers responded to a domestic call on Chedworth Lane in Stone Mountain. Property records show that’s where Horton and his wife own a home.
He was arrested Saturday afternoon and booked into the jail on two charges: aggravated assault/strangulation and cruelty to children in the third degree. Children were present at the time of the assault, the police spokesperson said.
Horton is accused of putting his hands around his wife’s neck after she told him to not slam a door in the home, according to his arrest warrant obtained Sunday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Police said the woman’s 5-year-old child saw Horton choke her and push her toward a wall.
While there were no visible injuries, the wife told police that she felt like “she would faint” during the incident, the warrant stated.
Horton was hired to lead the state’s third-largest school district in 2023. He resigned in October after he was indicted on federal charges in Illinois related to a kickback scheme at his old job.
The indictment accused Horton of steering district contracts in the Evanston-Skokie School District 65 outside of Chicago to his longtime friends, then getting about $85,000 in kickbacks from the contracts between 2020 and 2023.
Horton was the district’s superintendent during that time period. He was also accused of misusing his district-issued purchasing card and tax evasion.
Horton pleaded not guilty to those charges.
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