The first lawyers to successfully challenge Macon Circuit District Attorney David Cooke’s practice of pursuing gambling charges against businesses with video gaming machines said the DA’s call for a law banning the devices means the people he has prosecuted did nothing wrong.

Atlanta attorney Chris Anulewicz said Cooke’s call this week for the Georgia General Assembly to pass a law banning the coin-operated game machines “must mean they are currently legal—and have been.” Cooke confirmed Monday that the coin-operated game machines he wants to ban were the basis of his office’s prosecution last year of Anulewicz’s client, 74-year-old Peach County restaurant owner Ronnie Bartlett.