Coming Sunday. DeKalb County taxpayers, according to an investigation into the county's contracting practices, have for years paid inflated or phony bills, and contracts worth millions of dollars have been awarded to sham companies. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution digs into a special grand jury investigation that lays bare a culture of self-dealing, nepotism and cronyism that allowed corruption to flourish.
DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis was having a hard time closing the deal.
On the telephone with a new county government vendor, Ellis bemoaned the high cost of his recent re-election campaign. A fundraising event was coming up, and Ellis suggested the vendor contribute at the “maximum level”: $2,500.
But the vendor balked. As a Cobb County resident who knew little about Ellis’ politics, why would he “support” DeKalb County?
In a sterner tone, Ellis reminded the man that his new contract was with DeKalb. “If I got to sit and explain to you why you would want to support this county government – ”
To members of a special grand jury, who listened to a recording of the phone call, the meaning of Ellis’ unfinished remark was clear: The way to do business with county government was to donate to the man who ran county government.
The call and several others of a similar nature are detailed in a report by the grand jury, impaneled to investigate DeKalb County contracting practices. The jury completed work in January, but its report became public only this week, as Ellis prepares to stand trial on corruption charges.
The report offers significant new details about Ellis’ alleged misdeeds, and indicates that at least some of them were secretly recorded.
Acting “under the color of his title as CEO,” the grand jury said, Ellis pressured county vendors, especially those with newly awarded contracts, to contribute to his campaign fund. Those who declined, the grand jury said, faced a loss of county business “for punitive and political reasons.”
Ellis, who was suspended from office last month after his indictment, has not spoken publicly about the case. On Thursday, his representatives criticized the grand jury’s report – its findings, its recommendations, even its provenance.
“There’s a lot more to be told,” said Jeff Dickerson, a spokesman for Ellis’ defense team. “Nowhere will we find that there was a threat to any firm, any business, that they would lose county business if they did not give a contribution. There was no correlation between whether you gave and whether you won a county contract.”
Craig Gillen, Ellis’ lead attorney, said the report proves that the grand jury exceeded its authority. In court filings, he has said the jury’s original charge allowed it to investigate only contracting in DeKalb’s Department of Watershed Management from 2002 to 2010.
“Now that the report is public,” Gillen said Thursday, “it is clear to us that the abuse is much more extensive and pervasive than we initially thought.”
The report, however, also gives a more extensive account of the acts alleged in Ellis’ indictment. Often quoting from secret recordings of Ellis’ conversations with vendors and county employees, it depicts the CEO directly – and persistently – pressuring contractors for campaign cash.
In June 2012, a few weeks after Cobb County-based Power and Energy Services won its first contract with DeKalb, Ellis telephoned the company’s co-owner, Brandon Cummings, to request a $2,500 political contribution, the grand jury report says. Cummings waffled, telling Ellis he needed to discuss the matter with his wife.
The next day, Ellis called the company again, and an employee told him Cummings had decided not to give. Ellis’ “demeanor changed,” the grand jury report says, “and he became upset.” He asked the employee, “Oh, so you are not interested in doing work in DeKalb County?”
Also during the summer of 2012, according to the grand jury, Ellis called another new vendor, Ellenwood-based National Property Institute, seven times to solicit a campaign contribution.
One of the owners, Trina Shealey, tried to ignore the requests. But Ellis instructed the county employee who oversaw the company’s contract, valued at $1 million, to bring Shealey and her husband, Greg, to the CEO’s office, the report says. The Shealeys eventually decided to give Ellis’ campaign $2,500.
The Shealeys did not respond to a request for an interview Thursday, but the grand jury report says they donated “because they were afraid that their contract with the county would be terminated if they did not.”
That fear was legitimate, the grand jury’s report says.
While the Shealeys were resisting Ellis’ appeals, the report says, he directed a county employee to “just dry them up” by withholding additional work.
And Ellis became “very upset” after Cummings, of Power and Energy Services, declined to contribute, the report says. Calling the company “not responsive,” Ellis instructed an aide to withhold business from Power and Energy, despite its contract, and to place a note in its file to make sure it never got county work again, the report says.
The company worked at a lower price than another one with a similar contract, the report said, “thus the directive … comes at a financial detriment to DeKalb County.”
Cummings did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The grand jury said Ellis repeatedly interfered in the county’s bidding process, deciding which staff members would sit on panels reviewing bids by campaign contributors and improperly talking with vendors while their bids were under consideration. The report says he also ordered that bids go to clients of his political consultant, Kevin Ross, or to vendors who had raised money for the CEO’s campaigns.
Dickerson, the spokesman for Ellis’ defense team, said the grand jurors naively found fault in what he called a common practice at all levels of government: elected officials soliciting and accepting donations from public contractors.
Despite any appearance to the contrary, Dickerson said, “there was never any quid pro quo.”
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