Investigation: College Park paid $548K in unlawful real estate commissions

The former chairman of College Park’s development authority executed unlawful agreements that resulted in questionable payments totaling more than $548,000 to a real estate company, according to an investigation by the development authority’s lawyer.

The investigation led the board of the Business & Industrial Development Authority, known as BIDA, to publicly censure the former chairman, Tracey Wyatt. At the time of his censure, Wyatt was vice chairman. He resigned that position in August but remains on BIDA’s board.

Brokerage agreements executed by Wyatt and the commission payments to Keller Williams for land transfers also figured in a criminal investigation by the College Park Police Department under then-Chief Connie Rogers. The police investigation launched approximately two months after the BIDA probe.

A felony charge of theft by deception was brought against a real estate broker, Nichole Menzies, according to an arrest warrant. Police said she and another real estate agent, Phyllis Minter, received 10% commissions for land transfers that either did not require any work or otherwise should not have been paid.

On Aug. 28, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Menzies, citing insufficient evidence, according to a letter from the office. Officials with the DA’s office did not respond to questions e-mailed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The controversy resurfaced this month after Rogers, who resigned as police chief in December, alleged in a grievance letter to the City Council members and other officials that she had faced retaliation for seeking an arrest warrant in the case.

Rogers, who has called for an investigation into allegations that she faced “pressures, unethical directives and politically motivated interference” while on the job, does not say in her letter who retaliated against her for pursuing criminal charges or what kind of retaliation she faced.

Rogers declined to comment for this article.

Connie Rogers resigned as College Park's police chief in December. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

Phone messages left for Menzies on Thursday and Friday were not returned. Her lawyer, former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, also did not respond to voicemail and text messages.

Minter, who was not charged, declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Keller Williams would only say that “we’re a franchise model, and our brokerages are independently owned and operated.”

Questions also remain about why Wyatt allegedly entered into the brokerage agreements without the full support of BIDA’s board, and about whether the city will try to get the money back from Keller Williams.

“This person represented BIDA illegally and got our city into a position where we lost a half a million dollars,” said College Park City Council member Jamelle McKenzie, a former chair of BIDA, referring to Wyatt. “The money has not been returned.”

Wyatt, in a phone interview, said no contract he signed had anything to do with theft and that he has not received “one penny.”

In 2017, then-College Park Ward III Councilman Tracey Wyatt and then-Fire Chief Wade Elmore address the attendees of an update on city progress. (AJC File)

“This has been investigated and this matter has been completely settled,” added Wyatt, a former College Park City Council member who was appointed to BIDA by Ward 3 council member Tracie Arnold.

When Wyatt stepped down as vice chairman of BIDA last year, he told other board members he was “deeply sorry for the trouble my actions taken during my tenure as BIDA chair have caused,” according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by the AJC.

BIDA’s attorney, LaTonya Nix Wiley, wrote in a summary of her findings that Wyatt acted outside his authority as chair of BIDA by executing agreements — including a September 2024 “exclusive representation agreement” with Keller Williams — without the required approval from BIDA’s board.

“This was not a matter of misunderstanding or isolated error,” Wiley wrote in her report obtained by the AJC. “The pattern of conduct shows repeated disregard for required procedures, the deliberate concealment of material actions from the Board, and the misuse of public funds in violation of both the letter and the spirit of BIDA’s governing framework.”

BIDA is a public corporation with the authority to contract with public and private entities, including the city of College Park, in support of BIDA’s economic development mandate.

Wiley’s investigation concluded invoices submitted for real estate commissions involved property transfers between related government entities and were based on the assessed value of the properties — not sale amounts.

The September 2024 contract — signed by Wyatt and the Keller Williams agents — says BIDA will pay commissions of 10% of the purchase price of properties to Keller Williams. But it also says BIDA will pay commissions of 10% “of the appraised value when the transaction involves eminent domain, a land swap, deed transfer or other exchange between entities or persons.”

The Keller Williams invoices reference land acquisitions for Six West, a 311-acre site on which the city hopes to facilitate a major mixed-use development.

The biggest payment to Keller Williams, of $471,690, was approved in February 2025 by former City Manager Emmanuel Adediran, according to purchasing documents obtained by the AJC. The money allegedly was for commissions from the transfer two years earlier of five real estate parcels from the city of College Park to BIDA through a quitclaim deed, Wiley found.

Only $1 exchanged hands in the land transfers, according to the quitclaim deed, but the Keller Williams invoice values the five parcels at a total of $4.7 million and billed the city for a 10% commission. A quitclaim deed is a legal document that transfers a person or entity’s interest in a property to another party.

Authorities said Menzies initially submitted a $669,000 invoice to the city for commissions that was rejected by Brian Hooker, who at the time was the city’s interim economic development director and BIDA’s interim executive director.

“I rejected the transaction because it made no sense to pay a commission for a transfer of land from the city of College Park to BIDA,” Hooker told the AJC on Thursday.

A sign on Highway 29 heading north into College Park marks the city limit. (Curtis Compton/AJC File)

A revised invoice for $471,690 was then submitted to Adediran, who authorized the payment, records show.

Wiley wrote in her investigative report that the money was “obtained by exploiting a leadership vacuum” within the city.

Adediran, who was fired in May, declined to comment.