The most notable thing he’d earned in his life was a reputation as the man who burned down a bridge. But on Friday, 42-year-old Basil Eleby got a medal.
A blaze melted the I-85 overpass at Piedmont Road in March 2017. Police accused Eleby, who maintains his innocence, of smoking crack cocaine under the bridge and setting fire to a sofa chair.
Living in a beat-up car at the time, Eleby was pinned for the crime by police and became the face of the disaster for thousands of angry commuters. The sofa fire hopped to the pile of high-density plastic piping that Georgia Department of Transportation had been storing under the bridge for several years — a practice barred by other states.
Christina Matacotta
Christina Matacotta
Prosecutors agreed to drop the arson charges if Eleby completed an 18-month mental health and sobriety program.
He did that Friday, graduating from the Behavioral Health Treatment Court’s accountability program in front of 100 people. A ceremony was held in the room where the Fulton Board of Commissioners meets.
“I feel like a new person,” Eleby said.
MORE | Atlanta bridge collapse: Who is to blame?
Program organizers played a video of interviews with the eight graduates, which also featured their mugshots.
“That’s you, Daddy,” a little boy said of another graduate’s mugshot, causing the crowd to laugh.
Atlanta native Ashleigh Wise said this is also the first certificate she has earned in her 28 years. She described Eleby as a “sweetheart” who’d often slip her $5 after she lost her job.
“None of us really want to be here,” said Wise, who entered the program after being accused of domestic violence charges against her mother.
The court, run by Fulton Superior Judge Rebecca Crumrine Rieder, requires participants to take four to five random drugs tests a week and gives them resources to make better decisions.
Eleby has been working part-time for the Davis Bozeman law firm in Decatur, which was part of the legal team that provided him pro bono representation. Attorney Mawuli Davis said entering into the program does not mean that Eleby admitted guilt. Davis said they were ready to go to trial, but the accountability court was best route for Eleby and his addiction.
When asked Friday why he thought he was blamed, Eleby said: “I was in the right place at the right time … I looked the perfect part.”
MORE | GDOT defends storage of material that ignited in bridge collapse
GDOT and its leader Russell McMurry earned scrutiny after the fire, as many wondered why the plastic kindling was left unsecured for years under the bridge.
"(The fire) gave us a bigger awareness of potential risk, which has driven us to make sure we don't have those kind of things out there," McMurry previously said.
Workers with C.W. Matthews labored 24 hours a day for six weeks to rebuild the 92-foot section that collapsed, working so fast that the contractor earned a $3.1 million GDOT incentive.
But Eleby is just beginning to repair his life two decades after getting addicted to drugs.
Eleby said he started getting high at age 21 to numb the pain of a break-up, then sold crack cocaine before trying it himself to see why people were paying him so much for the drug.
“It just gave me the feeling I’d been looking for … but little did I know that it was the start of a whole other world that I was going to be introduced to,” he said.
Eleby said he last used an addictive substance in December 2017. It was a sip of alcohol. He has been at a sober-living home in College Park.
On Monday, Eleby starts his first full-time job in 15 years: He will work an assembly line at CKS Packaging on Atlanta's west side. There is a GoFundMe page trying to raise $2,500 to get him a 1994 Lexus.
And, no, his daily commute won’t take Eleby on that particular patch of suspended concrete.
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