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DEL.ICIO.USTV anchor tells of lavish trips with Campbell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TV anchor Marion Brooks testified Wednesday about a four-year-long affair with a married Bill Campbell, about exotic and romantic getaways, and how he paid for it all with cash.
Their travelogue included stops in San Francisco, Paris, Mexico, Jamaica and culminated in a trip to Paris.
Brooks, a former reporter and anchor at WSB-TV in Atlanta and now in Chicago, was on the stand for 40 minutes, and looked at everybody in the courtroom except Campbell, whose wife, Sharon, was absent from the courtroom where she has been almost every day. Campbell looked her direction but their eyes never appeared to meet.
She testified she met Campbell at a 1996 birthday party for Tom Houck, an Atlanta gadfly and friend of the former mayor’s. While she worked in the city she said they met “probably a couple of times a week,” sometimes at her apartment, frequently on out of town trips.
She talked about how Campbell’s personal assistant, Dewey Clark, often arranged hotel accommodations. She testified Campbell loaned her $16,000 in cash to make a down payment on a Chicago apartment, where she moved in December 1997.
They continued their affair long-distance, she said. She testified Campbell told her “he borrowed the [$16,000] from Gabe Pascarella.” She said she paid back the money to Pascarella, who is a Campbell friend who made travel arrangements for Campbell and was a regular in their Friday night poker games.
Brooks did not testify to witnessing any bribes.
In one of the more unusual twists in the trial that, at times has been bogged down in legal wrangling and bookkeeping procedures, prosecutors showed pictures taken of a July 1999 trip taken by Brooks and Campbell to Paris, where, for the first four days they stayed at the Bristol Hotel.
“Very nice, top of the line,” said Brooks.
In the photos Campbell is seen standing in front of the Palace at Versailles, and the Arch de Triomph, with Larry Wallace, the city’s chief operating officer, who was also along on the trip.
She also testified that Campbell bought her gifts, including bracelets, a necklace, and water color paintings in Paris.
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