Former Fulton County Commissioner Reginald Eaves, who spent time in prison for an extortion conviction, died Tuesday. He was 81.
Eaves, who served nearly a decade on the commission, died in Florida, where he had been hospitalized after several health problems in recent months, according to his nephew, current County Commission Chairman John Eaves. His nephew did not announce a specific cause of death.
“What I can tell you now is this, the suffering he endured in recent years is over,” Eaves said in a statement announcing his uncle’s death.
Reginald Eaves had a sometimes tumultuous public career. He was Atlanta’s first African American public safety commissioner, but resigned in 1978 amid a scandal involving cheating on police promotion exams.
He was first elected to the Fulton Board of Commissioners in 1978. He served until 1988, when a federal grand jury found him guilty of three counts of extorting cash from developers seeking zoning changes and from an FBI agent posing as a developer. He was sentenced to six years in prison and five years’ probation, but ultimately served less than two years in prison.
Eaves also ran an unsuccessful campaign for Atlanta mayor in 1981.
John Eaves called his uncle “a proud public servant and, more importantly, a proud family man.”
“He cared about making the community around us a better place,” Eaves said. “He loved his family, he loved life and he loved the City of Atlanta, his adopted hometown.”
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