Former Atlanta City Councilwoman Davetta Johnson Mitchell came to Superior Court Thursday dressed for a funeral — black shoes, black skirt and black jacket — and with seven counts of theft hanging over her head.

Mitchell was indicted last August on charges of stealing more than $40,000 from the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority when she was its executive director in 2003.

File photo

Davetta Johnson Mitchell

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She was scheduled to enter a plea on the theft charges Thursday, but the plea was postponed because she has hired a new lawyer, Avis Hornsby, said Lyn Vaughn, spokeswoman for the Fulton District Attorney's Office.

Mitchell's next court hearing is scheduled for the end of June, Vaughn said.

Former DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan had represented Mitchell previously.

Mitchell represented East Atlanta while on the City Council in the 1990s, where she became a close ally of former Mayor Bill Campbell. Campbell appointed her to head the recreation authority in 1997. He currently is serving a federal prison sentence for income tax evasion.

As executive director, Mitchell was paid $118,000 and presided over the short life of the Fanplex, an arcade and mini-golf facility that became mired in financial problems and closed less than 18 months after it opened.

Mitchell declined to comment Thursday. In past interviews, she denied any wrongdoing and said she wrote herself a $24,000 check from authority funds to compensate herself for unused sick time and vacation. She said she wrote her former assistant Sabrina Hunter a check for about $11,000 for the same thing.

Mitchell also is accused of writing herself other checks from the authority's account totaling about $5,000.

She said she was willing to let an independent arbiter decide how much if any money she owed the authority. Arbitration is usually reserved for civil disputes. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard pursued criminal charges.

Hunter cooperated with authorities and testified before the grand jury last August. In a 2004 interview, she denied ever asking Mitchell for the money and said she spent it on medical bills accrued by her dying father.

Hornsby declined to say whether Mitchell had agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors, still planned to plead guilty or intended to exercise her right for a jury trial. Mitchell was indicted on seven theft charges, each of which carries a potential sentence of 1 to 15 years in prison and up to a $100,000 fine.

The authority Mitchell ran has its own controversial past.

It was once responsible for issuing bonds to build major sporting venues in Atlanta and then overseeing their operation. But many of its former duties have been assumed by sports teams and their managers and owners.

Some have argued for its dissolution. However, Mayor Shirley Franklin has said it can be valuable to a city short on parks and recreational opportunities. The authority continues to oversee some improvements at Turner Field through negotiations with the Braves as well as providing financing for facilities like Zoo Atlanta.

Meanwhile, Fanplex sits empty awaiting redevelopment. The Atlanta City Council has approved a tax allocation district for the area surrounding Turner Field in hopes of spurring mid-rise development in the area.

The authority tried in vain to sell the shuttered entertainment venue for more than a year. Fulton Commissioner Nancy Boxill, who chairs the authority, said the building now is not even on the market.

"We have several options — sell it, developing it ourselves or engaging in a partnership to develop it," she said.