Reginald Veasley arrives at the restaurant about 20 minutes after the man wearing the wire.

There’s not much small talk before the latter, a “confidential human source” working for the feds, gets down to business. He tells Veasley that “Sharon” now wants $1,000 a month, not the previously stated $500.

Middle and last names are never uttered but, according to authorities, it’s understood that DeKalb County Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton is being referenced.

Veasley, the leader of a local construction firm that does water and sewer work, is not happy.

He says he doesn’t have that kind of cash, reiterates that he doesn’t want to be doing any of this to begin with. He’s not even sure what the money is for, exactly.

“I’ve been workin’ in the county for nineteen years I never had to [expletive] give nobody no cash money to their hand, never, all this time,” Veasley says, according to a transcript filed in court. “An’ then the one [expletive] that ask me would be the stupidest [expletive] on the planet?”

Despite the objections during that July 23, 2014, conversation — and Veasley’s apparent contempt for Barnes Sutton — he’d already made one $500 payment to the commissioner, authorities say. And he’d make another a few days later, albeit not in the higher amount suggested.

Federal prosecutors believe a total of $1,000 went to Barnes Sutton.

Veasley has not been charged with a crime. But now, more than eight years later, he’s likely to testify when the former commissioner finally stands trial.

The case against Barnes Sutton is one that prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice’s public integrity unit didn’t charge until 2019, just before the statute of limitations on her alleged offenses of bribery and extortion expired. There have been years of subsequent delays due to COVID-19 and a litany of other issues.

Barring any further complications, though, proceedings will begin with jury selection Oct. 25.

There’s an admittedly paltry sum at play in the allegations. But as perhaps the final shoe to drop from an era of DeKalb County governance once described as rife with corruption, Barnes Sutton’s trial also represents something bigger.

Caren Morrison is an associate professor of law at Georgia State University and a former federal prosecutor in New York.

“Is it a huge case? No,” she said recently, referencing the amount of money involved. “But if these cases are not pursued, then there’s absolutely no signaling that public officials should keep their hand out of the cookie jar. It’s an important civics lesson that these types of trials are attempting to teach us.”

‘Then how do I get it?’

The trial is expected to take about two weeks, give or take a few days. It could get tedious; Barnes Sutton’s public defender, Mildred Dunn, recently suggested that “a lot of bank records and a lot of phone records” will be in play.

But there will be plenty of intrigue, too.

Barnes Sutton’s defense team is seemingly poised to argue that the commissioner suffered both an aneurism and a stroke in 2012, about two years before the alleged crimes took place — and that the malady may have caused “relevant cognitive damage” that should be considered by jurors as they weigh her guilt or innocence.

Dunn said during a pre-trial hearing that it hadn’t yet been decided if Barnes Sutton would testify.

The government’s case, meanwhile, centers around secret recordings garnered by their wire-wearing source, who’s since been confirmed to be Morris Williams. He previously served as the chief of staff for DeKalb’s Board of Commissioners and deputy chief operating officer for the county administration.

Williams and a county contractor, Doug Cotter, pleaded guilty in 2017 to charges related to a $4,000 check that bore the forged signature of interim DeKalb CEO Lee May. The check was reportedly cashed by Cotter.

While there were insinuations of a possible kickback scheme being at play, prosecutors at the time said they didn’t know where the money went after that.

According to court filings, Barnes Sutton enlisted Williams as a middleman sometime after the May 2014 commission meeting in which she approached Veasley, whose firm, Environmental Consortium LLC, was a subcontractor on a larger project to renovate the county’s Snapfinger Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The commissioner reportedly asked Veasley “for an explanation as to why a company that was owned by a friend of Barnes Sutton’s” had not been added to the team of subcontractors.

“After [Veasley] provided an explanation, Barnes Sutton wrote “500″ on a piece of paper and provided it to [Veasley],” the indictment says. “[Veasley] understood Barnes Sutton to be requesting payment of $500.”

(In a recorded conversation with Williams, Veasley would later say he was “dumbfounded” by the brazenness of the commissioner’s actions.)

It’s unclear when or how Williams became an informant for the federal government. But by early June, he was recording a car-ride conversation with Barnes Sutton, saying he’d met with Veasley.

“That Tetra Tech thing was — he supposed to give you five hundred,” Williams said, referencing the larger firm overseeing the Snapfinger project. “An’ I-I’m not in that.”

“Then how do I get it?” Barnes Sutton asked, according to the transcript.

Ultimately, prosecutors say, one payment would involve Veasley giving money to Barnes Sutton’s son in a restaurant. The second and final payment was made at Barnes Sutton’s Stone Mountain home.

‘Too hot of an environment’

All of this was going on at time when the DeKalb County government — and contracting in the Department of Watershed Management in particular — were already under intense scrutiny.

A special grand jury report released to the public in 2013 found widespread “incompetence, patronage, fraud and cronyism” and recommended criminal investigations into a dozen county officials and vendors.

Former CEO Vernon Jones was implicated in the report but never criminally charged. Another CEO, Burrell Ellis, was indicted, accused of shaking down county contractors for campaign contributions.

Kelvin Walton, the county’s former purchasing director, flipped for the prosecution and wore a wire to help convict Ellis rather than face a potential perjury charge for lying to the grand jury. (Ellis’ verdict was later overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court, which found he didn’t receive a fair trial).

About a year after the report was released, Commissioner Elaine Boyer pleaded guilty to federal charges that she swindled taxpayers out of more than $100,000. She was using her county purchasing card for personal expenses and used phony invoices to funnel thousands of taxpayer dollars to herself and an evangelist working as a consultant in her office.

Around the same time, Barnes Sutton was also facing scrutiny for her own use of a P-card, among other things.

Viola Davis — now a state representative from Stone Mountain — was then a dedicated citizen watchdog. She and her group, Unhappy Taxpayer and Voter, filed multiple ethics complaints against Barnes Sutton and various other county officials during the time period.

She said they “had no idea” the feds were investigating to the extent they were.

“We had filed several complaints,” Davis said last week. “But it appears that it’s through a confidential informant and close insider testimony that Sharon Barnes Sutton will be held accountable for her actions.”

According to transcripts, everyone involved in the commissioner’s scheme was well aware of what could be at stake.

“It’s too hot of an environment anyway,” Veasley told Morris in one conversation, discussing his reluctance to make the requested payment. “An’ [Barnes Sutton] is one of the hottest topics on the map.”

Timeline: DeKalb bribery case