CLEVELAND, Ga. — Sentinel Offender Services has left the state!

White County Probate Court Judge Garrison Baker, speaking at the Board of Commissioners work session Monday, said Sentinel, a California-based provider of probation services that has been sued more than a dozen times and recently settled a $2 million federal civil rights lawsuit, will no longer provide services in Georgia.

Sentinel reportedly has sold more than 50 contracts with Georgia municipalities, including White and Lumpkin counties. That sale, appears to be in response to the mountain of lawsuits and the new Georgia state laws that forbid private probation companies from jailing people for failure to pay without a hearing, or charging more than three months’ worth of fees when the probationers are only on probation because they couldn’t afford their fines.

White County’s contract with Sentinel was not scheduled to end until 2018. Baker said, the existing contract will be transferred to Coastal Savannah Regional Area (CSRA) pending the Board of Commissioners approval at the regular meeting next Monday.

“I’m confident the company taking over this contract has a good track record and a process that we are impressed with,” Baker said. “They have been in business for a number of years. They do a good job.”

Many probationers, most of them low-income, elderly who say they were bullied and humiliated by Sentinel, will welcome the change.

Two of the women who claim to have been victimized by Sentinel are White County residents.

Forty-five-year-old Marianne Ligocki’s only offense was driving on a suspended license. She pleaded guilty and was fined $313. Sentinel charged her a $44-a-month supervision fee and $15 each time they forced her take an unnecessary urine test.

Rita Luse, 62, pleaded guilty to driving without a license. She was fined $775 and put on probation until she could pay. She, too, gave Sentinel extra fees for supervision and drug testing, even though the White County judge did not order it.

The women sued Sentinel and U.S. District Judge Richard Storey recently signed off on settlement that paid them a total of $80,000. In their lawsuit, the women said that in addition to the extra financial burden, they were humiliated. They said they were forced to give urine samples while someone watched and sometimes in a room with the door open. If they didn’t give the sample and pay for it, the Sentinel probation officer told them, they would be jailed.