Seventeen times, DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis called National Property Institute and left messages for owner Trina Shealey. And 17 times, his calls soliciting a campaign contribution went unreturned.
Then she and her husband, the company’s co-owner, were summoned to a meeting in Ellis’ office, along with one of their employees.
Ellis never asked for a contribution in that meeting, Greg Shealey told jurors in Ellis’ corruption trial Thursday. But the message was clear: Give or lose out, Shealey testified.
Worried about NPI’s $1 million contract with the county, Shealey said that he forked over $2,500 three weeks later. The contract for NPI to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed contract remained in place.
“It was like someone twisted my arm and sat on my neck,” he said when asked if the contribution was voluntary.
Ellis is on trial for the second time on charges of extortion, bribery and perjury. Prosecutors say Ellis called NPI and other vendors to ask for campaign contributions and threatened their contracts if they did not respond to his phone calls. Ellis’ attorneys say that’s just not true. They admit that he asked for contributions, but say he never made threats because the vendors wouldn’t give. In each case listed in the indictment, Ellis contends, he was angry because he couldn’t even his phone call returned.
Prosecutors also say Ellis perjured himself when he lied to a special purpose grand jury about his role in awarding county contracts.
Ellis went on trial last year on the same charges, but a jury could not agree on a verdict after 11 days of deliberation, forcing a mistrial. He’s been suspended with pay since he was indicted two years ago.
Thursday, Greg Shealey told jurors when Ellis walked into the room for that Oct. 1, 2012, “It was like all hell broke loose.”
The meeting was called to berate the NPI trio for not returning Ellis’ calls.
“He yelled and screamed and turned red,” Greg Shealey said. “It was something we’ve never seen before.”
Chris Morris, who retired in April as head of DeKalb’s Department of Community Development, described the tenor of the meeting differently. Morris, testifying immediately after Shealey, said Ellis was professional.
But she also told jurors about Ellis’ angry response when she defended NPI. She said she realized Ellis may have wanted to terminate the contract because the company had not made a political contribution, not just unreturned phone calls.
Morris said discussions about NPI continued after the Shealeys left. One of the people in on that second discussion was Kelvin Walton, then head of the county’s purchasing. Walton was secretly recording Ellis to help the District Attorney’s Office and so he would not himself be charged with lying to a special purpose grand jury.
Ellis is heard on the recording getting upset with Morris when she defended NPI.
After Morris left the room, Ellis said to Walton and his new chief of staff, “It’s time for Chris to go.”
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