Incarcerated Virginian in Oconee jail can’t make bond

Judge McIntosh made no immediate ruling yesterday on an Oconee public defender’s plea to lower the $250 thousand bond of a client. “Let me think about it,” the judge told lawyers from both sides. Derek Lydell Coleman has been jailed in Oconee since May last year after he and a second Virginia resident were arrested following an alleged I-85 road rage incident.  Authorities say the road rage started in South Carolina and came to a stop in Hart County, Georgia when Georgia troopers found a car parked off the right shoulder of Georgia 77.  Coleman attorney John Abdalla, on behalf of his client, appealed for a bond as low as $50 thousand and said his client would accept wearing an ankle monitor to track his movements before trial.  A young man, who identified himself as Isaiah Saunders, says he and his wife were the victims of the road rage incident and that, to this date, both suffer PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder.