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Thursday, March 2, 2006
Aide: Contractors didn’t routinely have mayor’s ear
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The story defense witness Eunice Lockhart-Moss is telling today about the comings and goings in City Hall during the administration of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell is different than the scenario created by prosecution witnesses over the last five weeks.
Lockhart-Moss is the former appointments secretary for Campbell who resumed her testimony this morning.
The government claims city contractors Fred Prewitt and Rickey Rowe came and went as they pleased in the mayor’s office, as they peddled influence, and gave or passed bribes to the former mayor.
The former mayor is facing federal racketeering charges for taking bribes, running city hall as a criminal enterprise and evading taxes. This is the sixth week of testimony.
Lockhart-Moss said, in her four years of working in the mayors office, she only saw Rickey Rowe on a few occasions, and when Prewitt would come by it was uusually to bring bananas to other staffers, not to see the mayor.
She testified that she never saw Herbert McCall, the city’s former commissioner of administrative services, come into the office.
Attorney Fred Orr completed his direct examination before the morning break. Prosecutors are expected to mount a vigorous cross examination.
On Wednesday, Lockhart-Moss had testified Campbell refused to sign United Water contracts, worth about $80 million, just before he left office in December of 2001.
Prosecutors allege that Campbell extended the contract of United Water just days before he left office in December 2001, and then publicly denied “knowingly” signing the extensions, worth about $80 million.
United Water is one of key elements of the government’s case against Campbell, who is charged with racketeering, taking bribes, illegally raising campaign funds and tax evasion.
Prosecutors claim United Water, which had a contract to manage Atlanta’s water system, footed the $12,000 bill for Campbell’s four-day Paris trip with TV anchor girlfriend, Marion Brooks, in July 1999.
But Lockhart-Moss, told jurors Wednesday that Campbell refused to sign the United Water documents before he left office and he never saw them until six months later.
Instead, she said, DeWayne Martin - the mayor’s former chief operating officer - took the documents from her in December 2001 after Campbell had already vacated his City Hall office.
Lockhart-Moss said Martin later told her: “I have just taken care of some people since your mayor doesn’t know how to take care of people who have helped him.”
Defense attorneys claim Martin, who often signed documents for the mayor, signed the United Water contracts without Campbell’s authorization, although a government handwriting expert testified the signatures were Campbell’s.
Lockhart-Moss’s claim follows Tuesday’s testimony by Campbell former press secretary, Zee Bradford, who said Martin claimed he could so closely duplicate Campbell’s signature “we could hardly tell the difference.”
Another defense witness, Connie Taylor, who was a receptionist in the mayor’s office from January 1994 to 1996, testified that city contractors Rickey Rowe and Fred Prewitt didn’t have the free access to the mayors office that prosecutors allege, and when they did come by, it was to visit the mayor’s special assistant, Dewey Clark - not Campbell.
On cross examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Phyllis Sumner ticked off all the years Taylor wasn’t in the mayor’s office - 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 - when the prosecution alleges Rowe and Prewitt were pervasive figures at City Hall.
Witness Wesley Barnes testified about an August 1997 meeting that took place between him, businessman Howard Sole, Campbell, and Rowe in which Sole’s company pitched a multi-million dollar project to help fix the city’s sewer system.
In earlier testimony, Sole claimed that Rowe approached him after the meeting and said: “I’m not saying the mayor said this, but $100,000 and the contract is yours, regardless of whether he is elected.”
Barnes said he didn’t remember Rowe asking for that $100,000 bribe. But, on cross- examination, he said he wasn’t disputing that at Rowe asked for the $100,000: “I just don’t recall it.”
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More testimony from mayor’s appointment aide
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A former special assistant to former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell is expected to return to the stand for the defense today.
Defense attorney Fred Orr was questioning Eunice Lockhart-Moss on Wednesday when the lawyer announced he wasn’t feeling well. U.S. District Judge Richard Story halted the testimony.
Lockhart-Moss told the jury Campbell never signed contract documents worth millions to United Water, a French-owned company that managed the city’s water system.
Prosecutors allege that Campbell extended United Water’s contract — worth about $80 million over the contract’s life — just days before he left office in December 2001. A handwriting expert for the prosecution testified last month that it was Campbell’s signature on contracts.
But Lockhart-Moss told jurors that Campbell refused to sign the documents before he left office and never saw them until six months later.
She said DeWayne Martin, the mayor’s former chief operating officer who often signed documents for the mayor, took the papers from her in December 2001 after Campbell had vacated his City Hall office. Lockhart-Moss testified that Martin told her he had “taken care� of the documents.
Lockhart-Moss said Martin, who often signed documents for the mayor, later told her: “I have just taken care of some people since your mayor doesn’t know how to take care of people who have helped him.�
Campbell has denied charges that he ran City Hall during his tenure as mayor from 1994 until 2002 as a criminal enterprise. The trial, which was expected to last six to eight weeks, is nearing the end of six weeks of testimony
Permalink | | Categories: Bill Campbell trial
