A retired DeKalb County department head testified CEO Burrell Ellis was frustrated with her because she was defending a vendor he wanted to cut off when the company didn’t return any of his 17 telephone messages.
Chris Morris, former head of DeKalb’s Department of Community Development, said Ellis repeatedly said he was upset with the co-owners of National Property Institute because they were not responsive to the head of a county that had awarded them a $1 million contract to rehab rundown houses. He insisted he was not threatening their contract because they did not give to his 2012 re-election campaign.
She, who retired in April, said she believed otherwise.
Ellis had asked her to call NPI’s owners, Trina and Greg Shealey, to come to a meeting at his office on Oct. 1, 2012, because he wanted to talk about the lack of responsiveness.
According to testimony, Ellis had called Trina Shealey 17 times to ask for help retiring his campaign debt and she returned none of the calls.
“Even though the CEO said it (the meeting with the Shealeys) wasn’t about campaign contributions, that was the origins of it,” Morris testified.
Ellis and Trina Shealy spoke once between June and September in 2012, as she was driving to a meeting, but the call ended abruptly. Trina Shealey testified earlier in the trial that Ellis’s call was dropped when someone else called her cellphone. She also testified she did not tell her husband, her business partner, about the calls.
Ellis is charged with extortion, bribery and perjury. Prosecutors say Ellis called NPI and other vendors to ask for a campaign contribution and threatened their contracts if they did not respond to his calls. Ellis also is charged with lying to a special purpose grand jury that was looking into corruption in county government when he lied about his personal involvement with county contracts.
Morris testified she was uncomfortable when she realized politics was at the root of the problem Ellis wanted to discuss with the Shealeys.
Yet Ellis is heard on recordings played in court insisting that his dissatisfaction with the Shealeys and NPI had nothing to do with whether they gave to his campaign. Kelvin Walton, the former head of purchasing and contracts for DeKalb, secretly recorded Ellis for months to avoid criminal charges himself. Walton recorded a meeting between himself, Ellis, Morris and the CEO’s top aide that came after the Shealeys left.
Ellis said on the recording he was concerned someone would claim “I some how forced (Greg Shealey’s) hand to give a campaign contribution. I wouldn’t take his money now.”
Greg Shealey testified Thursday he sent $2,5000 to Ellis’ campaign about three weeks after he and his wife had the Oct. 1, 2012, meeting in the CEO’s office.
Morris said Ellis became upset with her when she defended NPI. Ellis’ response also was captured by the secret recording played Thursday.
“That’s when he said I was being a juvenile. Not mature. Not positive,” Morris said.
Morris was called to testify in the corruption trial to offer another perspective from a meeting Ellis called on Oct. 1, 2012. She said the CEO was “professional” when he met with the Shealeys.
Greg Shealey, who owns NPI with his wife, testified otherwise.
Shealey said the meeting started out pleasant, until Ellis walked into the room.
“It was like all hell broke loose,” Shealey testified. “He yelled and screamed and turned red.”
Shealey said his wife was “visibly shaking.
“It was something we’ve never seen before.
NPI had a contract with DeKalb to buy run-down properties and rehab them for resale.
Shealey, his wife and a broker for NPI have all testified that Ellis said in the meeting he didn’t want the county to do business with a vendor who is not responsive to him. Shealey said all Ellis’ anger was directed at his wife.
Shealey said losing the contract would “be like the death penalty for my company. It’s a contract a lot of people know about…If you lose a contract like this everyone knows you lost the contract.”
NPI did not lose its contract.
Testimony in Ellis retrial began Tuesday. A jury of 12 women could not agree last fall on a verdict, which resulted in the ongoing retrial.
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