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Monday, January 23, 2006
Defense: Campbell unaware of aides’ actions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bill Campbell was a bright, charismatic man who devoted his life to the public, not enriching himself, defense attorneys said today in their opening statement in the former mayor’s corruption trial.
“Bill Campbell has a life of public service; he wanted to make a difference,” said Billy Martin, the team’s lead defense attorney. “From early in his life, he wanted to make this world [a better place], regardless of your race. He wanted all people to be treated equally.”
Martin, who split the 90-minute defense statement with two other attorneys, Jerry Froelich and Fred Orr, spun a story of a man with a lifetime of service, starting in the first grade when he was the first black child to integrate the schools of Raleigh, N.C.
“He was spit on; he was beaten; he was screamed and hollered at,” Martin said. He excelled at school, worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice and at a prestigious Atlanta law firm before going into city politics and ultimately getting elected as mayor.
The defense said Campbell wasn’t a bully, as prosecutors alleged. They said he fought for civil rights, affirmitive action and affordable housing. “He could have walked out of City Hall to any of these firms and said, ‘I want to make some money,’” Martin said.
Instead he stayed at City Hall and surrounded himself by several aides who, unbeknownst to him, were corrupt and betrayed him, the defense said.
“They stole, they lied, they cheated and when they got caught, they said, ‘I’m a small fish, I can give you a big fish,’” Martin said. Having people in his administration who are charged with wrongdoing “tells us Bill Campbell is human. He can make bad decisions in giving people opportunity.”
Another of Campbell’s admitted mistakes is philandering, his attorneys told the jury. But that’s between the former mayor and his wife, Sharon, who sat behind him.
The government witnesses kept the bribe money for themselves, telling contractors they had access to Campbell, Martin said.
Froelich presented his role to the jury as the defense enforcer. He ran down a list of potential government witnesses and, after mentioning each name, smiled menacingly and said, “I look forward to cross-examining him.”
The government pressured witnesses who repeatedly said that Campbell did nothing wrong, Froelich said. Those witnesses only came around to testify after being indicted on other charges and cutting deals.
“Wait until you see the bias, the motives and the deals,” said Froelich, pointing to the witness stand.
Orr accused prosecutors of nitpicking, of identifying barely more than $100,000 in illegal contributions from a campaign that raised $4 million.
Campbell could not have known everything that went on in his campaign just like he couldn’t watch everything going on in the city.
“There are people who did things illegal under Mayor Ivan Allen, Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, and probably, unfortunately, under the present administration. The city has over 8,000 employees.”
The only government witnesses expected to claim they gave bribes to Campbell are three men who can’t be trusted: Dewey Clark, Michael Childs and Dan DeBardelaben, said Orr. He wrote their names on a large display in front of jurors under bold block letters that read: “UNWORTHY OF BELIEF.”
Childs wanted to be “king of strip clubs” in Atlanta and would stop at nothing to corner the market, and that includes paying bribes to city officials without Campbell’s knowledge, burning down competitors’ clubs, threatening to hire someone to beat up Campbell when the mayor refused to grant his liquor license — and lying now, Campbell’s attorneys told jurors. And then he lied about giving payoffs to Campbell.
Clark, who lived in Campbell’s basement and worked as the mayor’s assistant, threw around Campbell’s name to solicit bribes and then kept the money himself, Martin said.
“He started flashing cash,” buying new cars for himself and his girlfriend, spending money at strip clubs and buying new suits, Martin told jurors. The mayor eventually fired Clark and threw him out of his house, Martin said.
And DeBardelaben, a golfing buddy of Cambpell’s who wanted the city’s Y2K computer contract, only turned on Campbell after being offered immunity.
“This great city is not a hotbed of criminal activity .. these three men are,” Orr said.
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Prosecution: Contractors were ‘ATMs’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In outlining the government’s racketeering case against former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, federal prosecutor Sally Yates painted a picture of a complicated man with two distinct sides.
He’s brilliant and charming, but he’s also cunning and deceptive — enough that he could pocket more than $160,000 in payoffs in exchange for city contracts while he was mayor.
“The public mayor was bright, charming and a gifted speaker,� Yates told a federal jury today. “But in his second life, he was a high-stakes gambler and traveler. In his second life, he couldn’t live off his city salary, so that was funded by city contractors.�
She also called him a man with little tolerance for those he didn’t like and trust, while being fully dependent on his “inner circle.�
So dependent was he that he trusted at least two in that circle with details of sexual liaisons with other women - including taking a “female friend� who was not his wife on a trip to Paris, funded by city contractor United Water.
Yates even used Campbell’s own words against him.
“ ‘Atlanta must become a city where elected officials are held to the highest of standards and not allowed to profit secretly,’ � Yates quoted Campbell as saying in 1993 when he was running for mayor for the first time. “He would break his word before the end of his first term.�
Opening statements in the Bill Campbell federal corruption trial began on a rainy Monday. Dozens of Campbell supporters were not seated until about 9:30 a.m., although court was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. U.S. District Judge Richard Story blamed the weather for delaying some of the jurors.
In court, after giving the jurors their instructions, Story allowed Yates to deliver her 90-minute opening salvo, outlining the government’s multi-count indictment against Campbell, charging that during his tenure as mayor from 1994 until 2002, he took bribes and illegal campaign contributions in exchange for giving friends city contracts.
Yates added that he took secret vacations, received illegal home improvement gifts, defrauded campaign donors and cheated on his taxes with the help of confidants, which included Larry Wallace, Herb McCall, Fred Prewitt, Steve Labovitz, Dewey Clark, Ricky Rowe and Michael Sullivan — all key figures in the federal investigation.
Campbell has denied the charges.
�Mayor Campbell made it very clear that he rewarded his friends and punished his enemies,� said Yates, who had a team from the U.S. attorney’s office in the courtroom. “He valued unquestioned loyalty.�
She said they all had different duties. Clark, Campbell’s former special assistant who lived in the former mayor’s Inman Park basement, collected cash and secured hotel rooms. Prewitt, Campbell’s friend and former chairman of the city’s Civil Service Board, arraigned gambling trips.
The prosecutor said Labovitz, who was Campbell’s chief of staff, was in charge of processing thousands of dollars worth of phoney campaign payments from contractor Ronnie Thornton, so that the campaign staff would not become suspicious.
“Contractors knew that when Mayor Campbell came knocking, they better pony up,� Yates said.
Yates told the jury that Campbell used his inner circle to insulate himself from the contractors and made special efforts not to get caught. She said he constantly had his home and office swept for bugs, mainly used cash and never dealt directly with contractors.
“Mayor Campbell was not an unsophisticated amateur,� Yates told the jury, admitting to them that presenting some of the evidence against Campbell will be hard, because he didn’t leave many trails. One of the few slips he did make, Yates said, was paying for his home to be waterproofed with a check, after he had received $2,500 through Fred Prewitt from a contractor to do it.
Yates instead will rely on bank records, cash transactions and the travel patterns of the former mayor. She said that between 1995 and 2001, he took 400 out-of-town trips and more than half of them were for personal reasons.
“He never once needed to take cash out of his account for his 200 trips,� Yates said.
Instead, during those personal trips, Campbell spent the money of contractors, who would often place wads of cash in his hands, or simply pay for his gambling, eating and hotel rooms. On occasions where Campbell would buy his own airline tickets, he often had friends buy them on their credit cards and paid them back in cash.
“Between 1996 and 2000, Fred Prewitt gave Mayor Campbell thousands in cash and took him on gambling trips,� Yates said. “These trips weren’t just two friends. Fred Prewitt rarely gambled, but before trips, Fred Prewitt took money out of the bank and Mayor Campbell never took a dime out.�
To track how much Campbell depended on illegal gifts, Yates said that the year before he started getting money from contractors, he withdrew $20,000 out of his personal account. After getting money from contractors, he relied on his personal accounts very little, withdrawing as little as $69 in 1999. But after the federal investigation began, prosecutors say Campbell once again relied on his personal accounts, withdrawing $17,000 in 2001.
“The contractors were human ATM’s,� Yates said.
Yates said that on two occasions, Clark, who was Campbell “personal valet,� witnessed Prewitt giving Campbell wads of cash. Once in a limo on their way out of town, Prewitt handed him $10,000.
“Afterward Fred Prewitt and Dewey Clark joked as they watched Bill Campbell walk through the airport clutching that wad of cash,� Yates said.
Clark, who lived in Campbell’s basement apartment for six years, was described by Yates as someone who idolized Campbell. Clark not only served as a bag man to secure money from the likes of club owner Michael Childs, but he also contributed to what thus far has been the most embarrassing early aspect of the trial: securing favors for Campbell from women.
“Mayor Campbell also used Dewey Clark to arraign liaisons with various women,� Yates said. “He would secure hotels, buy champagne, bring Campbell the key back and spend cash to cover the rooms and champagne.�
Sitting in the courtroom, Campbell would often shake his head when he disagreed with Yates. His wife, Sharon, sat motionless, next to his older brother, Ralph Campbell Jr. of Raleigh, N.C.
Yates added that United Water, which had the city’s water contract, paid for a trip for Campbell, Wallace and another female friend to Paris. And although United Water’s parent company is based in France, Campbell blew them off once he got to Europe.
“Instead, he enjoyed a personal vacation,� Yates said. “And if you looked at his office calendar, the Paris trip didn’t happen.�
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Campbell listens as jurors get instructions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The second week of proceedings in the federal corruption trial of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell got under way today a half hour late because traffic during the rainy morning commute delayed both the judge and some members of the jury.
After commencing, U.S. District Judge Richard Story read to the seven-man, five-woman jury the charges against Campbell and advised jurors of other expectations he has for them during the trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks.
The small courtroom on the 21st floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta was packed, with about 30 people who could not get in waiting on the outside.
As the judge instructed the jury, Campbell, a former federal prosecutor himself, closely watched them, occasionally whispering into the ear of his lead attorney, Billy Martin.
Besides supporters, there were also more than a dozen staffers from the U.S. attorneys office in the courtroom, along with a dozen reporters.
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Rain delays Campbell’s day in court
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The federal corruption trial of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell got a late start today, mainly because the judge in the case, Richard Story, was stuck in traffic during a rainy Monday morning.
By 8 a.m. at least 60 people had crowded into the area outside the 21st-floor courtroom at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta, where opening statements were set to begin. The trial was expected to begin at 9 a.m.
Campbell, along with this wife, Sharon, and brother Ralph Campbell, were among the crowd, which at one point began singing the old civil rights rallying song “We Shall Overcome.” After one verse, U.S. marshals stepped in and ordered the group to stop singing because other cases were being heard in the area, although none had started. The crowd then began praying.
Campbell mingled, thanking supporters for their presence.
“Of course I’m pleased,” the former Atlanta mayor said. ” I’m pleased to have the support of the people who believe in me. It makes a difference.”
Campbell has pleaded not guilty to charges that he used his tenure as Atlanta mayor from 1994 to 2002 to take bribes and illegal campaign contributions in exchange for giving friends city contracts. He also denies prosecutors’ claims that he evaded paying taxes.
The jury of seven men and five women is expected to take six to eight weeks to decide the case.
Michael Langford, among the Campbell supporters at the courthouse today, predicted, “It’s going to be all right. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be all right.”
Permalink | | Categories: Bill Campbell trial
