A year after Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor was indicted for ordering an employee to destroy financial records, the interim clerk who replaced her says she's turned a demoralized office into one where people want to show up.

Cherise Wesley-Ornelas became interim clerk in August 2025, just four weeks after being hired as the office's chief operations officer, she told the Marietta Daily Journal in a profile published Wednesday, Aug. 19. Gov. Brian Kemp had suspended Taylor without pay on Aug. 29, 2025, following a July 31, 2025, grand jury indictment on two counts of destroying public records and two counts of violating her oath of office, according to Atlanta News First.

Taylor is accused of telling a court worker to destroy documents related to her retention of passport fees as personal income, allegedly instructing the employee "to Donald Trump this thing." County records show Taylor's total passport fee income topped $1 million; she collected a check for nearly $600,000 on the eve of her suspension, the MDJ reported. Earlier in 2025, Taylor agreed to reimburse the county more than $83,000 in expedited shipping fees she was not allowed to keep.

Taylor was reelected in November 2024 while the criminal investigation was ongoing. The Cobb County District Attorney's Office recused itself; the Georgia Attorney General's Office is prosecuting.

For East Cobb homeowners, the clerk's office is no abstraction. Its real estate division, located across the street from the main courthouse, handles property records for every home sale and deed filing in the county.

Wesley-Ornelas told the MDJ that the COO position had been vacant for some time before she arrived, forcing systems administrator Carlos Pounds and others to split the duties. Morale was already low.

"I was basically thrown in a deep pool of water and said, 'Swim to the top,'" Wesley-Ornelas said. "But I'm a problem solver, I love to solve problems and I love a challenge."

She memorized every employee's name and role across the roughly 95-person office, adopted an open-door policy and began brainstorming workflow improvements with Pounds. The office spans three locations: the main courthouse, the real estate division and the Cobb Board of Equalization on Whitlock Avenue, which handles property valuation appeals.

Pounds said the change was immediate. He told the MDJ that when Wesley-Ornelas first arrived as COO, his impression was the office was finally going to get someone who could lead it properly. That task grew far larger four weeks later when she was asked to run the entire operation.

Under Wesley-Ornelas's watch, the office in July 2026 launched a second e-filing system, Tyler Technologies' eFile GA, giving lawyers a choice alongside the existing Peach Court platform, according to the Daily Report.

Wesley-Ornelas worked as a probation officer in Georgia after graduating from the University of Georgia, moved to Los Angeles in 2012 to continue that work with teens and adults dealing with homelessness and violent crime, and returned to Georgia in 2022 as a criminal investigator for the Cobb County District Attorney's Office. A friend recommended her for the COO job.

A grand jury reindicted Taylor with three additional felony charges in August 2026, pushing her trial back again, the MDJ reported. No new trial date has been announced. The outcome will determine whether Taylor returns to lead the office or Wesley-Ornelas stays on.