Prosecutors Drop Felony Case Against Energy Advocate Patty Durand, Renewed Calls for Transparency at Georgia’s Utility Regulator

Atlanta, GA – This week, the Fulton County District Attorney’s office formally declined to prosecute Patty Durand for an accusation that never should have been brought in the first place. Durand was charged with felony theft of “trade secrets” after briefly picking up a booklet labeled “Georgia Power Trade Secrets” during a Public Service Commission meeting last October. The case carried the threat of up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine. It is now over.

Durand, a former Democratic candidate for the PSC and founder of the watchdog group Georgians for Affordable Energy, had faced a felony charge of theft of trade secrets after picking up a booklet labeled “Georgia Power Trade Secrets” during a commission hearing in October. The charge raised alarms among consumer advocates who saw the case as a chilling signal to critics of the regulatory process.

This case was never really about Durand. It was about whether the public has a meaningful right to see and understand information presented to regulators who decide how much Georgians pay for electricity. It was about whether secrecy is being used as a shield to avoid accountability. And it was about how far a powerful monopoly utility is willing to go to discourage scrutiny.

The district attorney’s filing made clear what was obvious from the start: there was no intent to steal, no financial harm, and no evidence that the booklet even contained legally protected trade secrets. In the filing submitted Wednesday to Fulton County Superior Court, prosecutors laid out multiple flaws in the case. The arrest warrant failed to establish that Durand intended to steal the booklet, that the information inside was a protected and valuable trade secret, or that Georgia Power suffered any financial harm. Prosecutors also noted that Durand returned the booklet the same day and that the materials were not being actively supervised at the time. Perhaps most notably, Georgia Power itself confirmed to prosecutors that the incident caused no financial damage—undercutting a central requirement of a trade secrets prosecution. Prosecutors also noted that the material was not adequately safeguarded, raising serious questions about whether it met the legal definition of a trade secret at all.

At the Georgia Public Service Commission, enormous decisions affecting millions of customers are routinely made behind layers of redactions. Critical cost, infrastructure, and planning information is hidden from the very people who pay the bills. These levels of secrecy are far outside regulatory norms in other states, and they harm Georgia Power customers by preventing informed public participation. That is the real issue here. While the case has ended quietly, its implications have not. The controversy has drawn renewed attention to how frequently utilities are allowed to shield information from the public under claims of confidentiality, even as regulators approve multi-billion-dollar investments that directly affect customer rates.

As part of the resolution, Durand completed a four-hour awareness course. She is now free to continue pressing for reform through public engagement and her newsletter, which reaches thousands of subscribers statewide. The dropped prosecution may mark the end of one legal episode, but for consumer advocates, it underscores a larger unresolved question: how much secrecy is too much when public dollars—and public trust—are at stake?