Bribery figure got Atlanta job after parole for RICO conviction
A figure in the Atlanta City Hall bribery investigation got a job in Atlanta’s Public Works Department eight months after he got out of prison for racketeering.
Shandarrick Barnes was hired in a position that was created as “extra help” in public works and eventually took on a role involving inventory in the department. Barnes spent four years in prison on a 10-year sentence for a scheme that defrauded two local government agencies of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Atlanta's decision to offer a job to a convicted felon might never have become public if he had not been identified as a bit player in the bribery investigation swirling around City Hall.
In January, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News reported Barnes was the man federal agents say vandalized the home of contractor Elvin "E.R." Mitchell Jr. An Atlanta Police report states that Barnes admitted to federal agents to throwing a brick through a window at Mitchell's home and leaving dead rats on his property, in apparent attempt to stop Mitchell from talking to the FBI.
The prosecutor who put Barnes away in 2009 said Barnes’ hiring for a government job “is beyond the pale.”
“Whoever made that hire needs to be held accountable,” said prosecutor John Melvin. “They literally are letting the fox into the hen house.”
About the Authors
Dan Klepal is editor of the local government team, supervising nine reporters covering county and municipal governments and metro Atlanta. Klepal came to the AJC in 2012, after a long career covering city halls in Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky. He has covered Gwinnett and Cobb counties before spending three years on the investigative team.
