DeKalb County commissioners often award millions of dollars in county contracts at their meetings twice a month. The names of the companies that win the contracts are buried amid the governmentspeak and legalese that fill the commission’s agenda.
As far back as May 2011 and continuing until April this year, three county staff members were specially assigned to sift through those agendas and find contract winners big and small. They created spreadsheets listing the company names, plus each vendor’s contact person and phone number. The lists also cite the specific project or contract and the amount awarded to the company.
The spreadsheets were prepared at the direction of CEO Burrell Ellis, according to two county officials who were not authorized to speak on the record.
Those accounts mirror accusations in a 15-count indictment of Ellis in June, which states that he ordered county employees to compile special lists of vendors so he could solicit campaign contributions from them. In fact, there were nearly 40 such lists — and possibly m0re — containing hundreds of names of vendors, documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show.
Initially the county said the vendor lists described in the indictments did not exist. This week, however, the county released dozens of electronic spreadsheets in response to a request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the Georgia Open Records Act.
A DeKalb County grand jury indicted Ellis on 15 criminal counts, 14 of them felonies. The charges include theft, conspiracy and extortion, mostly stemming from campaign donations Ellis allegedly sought from companies whose names were on those lists.
The spreadsheets include about 500 vendor names, though some names appear multiple times.
Ellis’ indictment alleges that he directed Purchasing Director Kelvin Walton to create the lists, and that Walton, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator, enlisted three “contract assistants” to perform the work.
Ellis could not be reached for comment Thursday. But his attorney, Craig Gillen, said Ellis has done nothing wrong.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with any elected public official calling vendors who do work for the county or for the government regarding campaign contributions,” Gillen said.
Asked about the accusation that Ellis directed county staff to compile these lists on county time, Gillen said, “It’s public information isn’t it? You were able to get [the vendor lists]. Do you think it’s a crime for someone to get material together to give to you?”
Gillen declined to discuss specific charges in the indictment and added: “We’re going to be trying this case not in the newspapers, but in the courtroom.”
The spreadsheets are mostly named “KLW Agenda Proj” – KLW are Walton’s initials – and dated. Most of the titles also appear to have the initials of at least one of staffers who created them, “IMH,” “JH” or “NC.”
The staffers assigned to compile the lists, one of whom has since resigned, have been identified in court papers as Imani Marley-Husbands, Jackie Huff and Natascha Crenshaw. Walton, the office’s director, has not made any public statements about the investigation.
Ellis’ indictment alleges that he tried to keep at least three companies from getting government work after they didn’t give money to him: CIBER, an information technology company; equipment sales and service firm Power and Energy Services of Powder Springs; and Ellenwood real estate firm National Property Institute, or NPI.
The AJC found two of those three companies in the vendor data it obtained this week. (It appears that the newspaper did not receive all the vendor lists that were compiled.)
Both of those companies – National Property Institute and Power and Energy – showed up in the same spreadsheet, dated April 16, 2012.
For Power and Energy, the company’s contact person is listed as Brandon Cummings, and the amount awarded to his company is listed as $250,000.
Two months later, on June 25, 2012, Ellis allegedly threatened to cut Cummings’ company off from getting any more county work because he did not respond to Ellis’ solicitations. The CEO made the same threat three months later, the indictment alleges.
That same month, in September, Ellis allegedly told Walton to stop giving Power and Energy county work and instructed Walton to put a fictitious note in the company’s county file, stating that company officials didn’t return phone calls.
Cummings declined to comment.
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