Before Marietta lawyers David Cohen and John Butters notified the chairman of the South’s most famous short-order restaurant chain that they had recordings of “predatory sexual conduct” involving his longtime housekeeper, they turned to private investigators for help.

But Thomas Hawkins, owner of Hawk Private Investigations Inc. and investigator Michael Deegan said in depositions obtained by the Daily Report that they balked when the lawyers asked for help in securing video evidence to document housekeeper Mye Brindle’s claims that her boss had sexually abused her.