A day after being convicted on nine federal charges in the first trial of the Atlanta City Hall corruption investigation, Pastor Mitzi Bickers could be out of a job as a senior staff member of the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office.
Clayton Commission Chairman Jeff Turner said Bickers could be terminated from her job as chief of staff as soon as he gets the paperwork. The Sheriff’s Office would have to decide whether to fire Bickers and send their decision to him to sign off on.
“I’m waiting to see if they are going to prepare that either today or tomorrow for my signature,” Turner said. “They have cut off all her equipment and access to county stuff. ”
The news came as Bickers faces a maximum potential penalty of more than a century in prison, though she is likely to receive a small fraction of that time. She is scheduled for sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones in July.
During a Wednesday night service at Emmanuel Baptist Church in southeast Atlanta, which she leads, Bickers tried to prepare the congregation for what could be coming. She gave an impassioned 48-minute sermon that was livestreamed on Facebook, wearing the same emerald blazer and navy slacks she donned in court when the jury rendered its verdict.
“You cannot go forward looking back,” she said. “I know you are upset about what took place today, but I need somebody to shout with me right now, ‘I got to move forward.’”
Throughout the address, Bickers directly and indirectly referenced her conviction, and implored her congregants to be prepared for the future.
”God is on the verge of doing some things that are going to be amazing for all of us,” Bickers said.
Bickers said she has been preparing her church since 2017 for a “convergence” of things in the world that the congregation would need to wrestle. That also was the year the bribery scandal and federal prosecutors’ focus on Bickers in the investigation came to light.
Bickers said after the verdicts were read Wednesday, supporters in the courtroom worried about “how they were going to get me out of the building,” she said.
”I said, ‘I’m going out the same way I came in. I came in with my head up, I’m (going out) with my head up,’” she said.
“They said, ‘There’s media everywhere.’ I said, ‘They been everywhere. …I’ll be walking past them as long as they’re in my face,’” Bickers said.
Bickers said God has future blessings prepared for the faithful and urged them to be ready when opportunity calls.
”I won’t let nothing stop me from reaching my goal. Don’t let the world tell you that your success is a fallacy,” Bickers said. “Don’t let the world convince you that if you are successful, you must be a crook.”
Bickers was convicted on 9 of 12 federal charges — including conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns — by a jury of six men and six women.
A political consultant and get-out-the-vote guru who helped Kasim Reed win his first mayoral term in 2009, Bickers then became director of human services in Reed’s administration from 2010 to 2013.
Prosecutors alleged she used her influence at Atlanta City Hall to steer some $17 million in sidewalk, bridge work and snow removal contracts to contractors Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell Jr. and Charles P. Richards Jr., who previously pleaded guilty and testified against Bickers.
Bickers received some $2 million in bribes in return, according to her indictment.
Bickers started as a chaplain under Clayton Sheriff Victor Hill in 2016, about three years after leaving her city role, and has steadily risen in position — and salary, currently earning in excess of $130,000 per year.
Hill has been suspended from his position and is facing several federal counts of violating the constitutional rights of jail inmates.
About the Authors
