Complete coverage
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution brings our readers the most comprehensive coverage of the Burrell Ellis trial on our premium website, MyAJC.com/ellistrial/.
On the site:
> Read the latest AJC stories and analysis about this case.
> Browse an interactive that identifies the key players in the trial.
> Watch reporter Mark Niesse’s video about the case and what’s at stake for residents.
> Read court documents and review a timeline of the corruption probe.
What’s next
- Jurors will hear secret recordings of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis as he talked with county employees about political fundraising and county contracts.
- Many of those recordings were made by a key prosecution witness, Kelvin Walton, who was the county's purchasing director and oversaw contracting. Walton is expected to testify next week.
- Additional testimony will also come from other companies that an indictment alleges Ellis threatened. One of those companies is an Indiana-based biosolids business, Merrell Bros., that Ellis is accused of soliciting a $25,000 bribe from.
- Then Ellis' attorneys will begin their defense. So far, his lawyers have said Ellis was concerned about companies responding to his phone calls, not about them giving him money.
- Ellis faces 13 charges, including bribery, extortion, theft, and perjury. If he's found guilty on the bribery count, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
One by one, business owners said in court this week they felt intimidated by DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis when he asked for campaign contributions, and they feared losing work from the county if they didn’t pay up.
Ellis often mixed county business with politics, asking vendors for donations while in the same conversations threatening their contracts with DeKalb, according to a series of recordings played for jurors.
When a long-time employee, a key member of his staff, challenged his threat to shut out vendors who didn’t give, Ellis talked about getting rid of her as well.
The portrayal of Ellis in the first week of testimony was of a man who would berate and pressure businesses into giving. He’d repeatedly ask for money and become increasingly angry when his solicitation calls weren’t returned.
Ellis has pleaded not guilty to accusations that he shook down county vendors for political donations during his re-election campaign in 2012. Ellis was suspended from office after his June 2013 indictment.
His lawyers have argued that when he considered cutting vendors’ contracts, he did so because they weren’t returning his phone calls. They will present Ellis’ case after the prosecution finishes theirs.
Though vendors testified they didn’t call Ellis back because they knew he wanted contributions, Ellis said their unresponsiveness showed they were “not ready for prime time.”
“I don’t want to continue to doing business with people like that,” Ellis said on a recording of an Oct. 1, 2012, meeting with his chief of staff, the head of his procurement department and the county’s community development director.
The recordings came from a key witness for the prosecution, Kelvin Walton, the county’s head of purchasing, who was facing potential criminal charges himself and agreed to wear a wire.
Earlier that day, Ellis had met with the co-owners of Lithonia-based National Property Institute, which had won a $1 million county contract to rehab foreclosed houses, to talk about his unanswered calls.
Ellis later rehashed that meeting with Trina and Greg Shealey for his staff. Ellis complained on the recording that he made repeated calls that were never returned, and Trina Shealey hung up on him after he asked about giving him $2,500.
Chris Morris, DeKalb's community development director, urged Ellis to give the Shealeys and NPI another chance. She worried that the Shealeys could claim they lost the county's business because they wouldn't help the CEO's political campaign.
“I don’t want anyone saying ‘we lost this contract because we didn’t return the CEO’s call,’” said Morris, who had worked for DeKalb County about 30 years.
After she left the room, Ellis told Walton and Chief of Staff Hakim Hilliard, who was on his first day in the job, “It’s time for Chris to go.”
Then he continued his conversation with Walton and Hilliard, a conversation that was played for jurors on Friday.
“If you don’t respond to the CEO, you don’t respond to the county,” Ellis said. “I think what should really happen is, dry ‘em up.”
Hilliard testified he followed up with Ellis, stressing that the CEO should be careful about co-mingling politics and county business.
“If the purpose of the call was non-responsiveness and (it was) disconnected from the campaign, I was (still) concerned about them thinking it was because of the campaign,” Hilliard testified.
Later that month, NPI gave Ellis a $2,500 contribution and kept its contract.
That wasn’t always the case with other companies that he did allegedly “dry up.”
The co-owners of an Austell generator repair company, Power and Energy Services, testified that they stopped getting work calls from the county after they declined to contribute to Ellis.
“He was soliciting a contribution from us. It had nothing to do with servicing the county generators,” said Danice Cummings, a co-owner of the company.
Ellis’ lawyers argued, however, that DeKalb was allowed to cancel the contract for any reason.
The trial was anticipated to continue for another couple of weeks, when jurors will hear many more stealthily recorded conversations between Ellis and his confidants.
Representatives from at least two more businesses that Ellis called for contributions also are expected to testify.
Then 12 jurors will decide Ellis’ fate. A guilty verdict on the most serious charge, bribery, would come with a 20-year maximum sentence. But if Ellis is acquitted, he’d return to his position as the leader of one of Georgia’s largest counties, with 713,000 residents and a $1.2 billion annual budget.
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