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Jurors in the trial of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis nodded their heads and smiled in agreement Thursday with an upset businesswoman who recounted "demeaning" pressure from Ellis to give a campaign contribution.
Trina Shealey, the co-owner of National Property Institute, told jurors she believed Ellis was threatening to pull her company’s $1 million contract with the county unless she donated.
A defense attorney tried to get Shealey to concede that Ellis merely wanted the courtesy of a return phone call, but she insisted he was after one thing: campaign cash. She said Ellis wasn’t calling about the company’s contract to rehab foreclosed homes in Dekalb.
“It would be like the CEO of General Motors calling someone who works in one of the factories and telling them what to do,” she said. “There are so many layers between us and the CEO. There’s no reason for us to be talking to the CEO.”
Ellis has pleaded not guilty to accusations that he illegally mixed political activities with county business by intimidating companies that didn't financially support his re-election in 2012. Ellis' fight against extortion and bribery charges puts him at the center of metro Atlanta's biggest corruption trial since former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was convicted in 2006.
Shealey’s testimony appeared to be the most damaging yet to Ellis, who has been suspended from his elected position since soon after his June 2013 indictment.
Witnesses from another company, Power and Energy Services, testified earlier this week that they lost county business after refusing to make a contribution, but Ellis’ lawyers argued that DeKalb was allowed to cancel the contract for any reason.
In October 2012, Ellis brought Shealey and her husband, Greg, into his county government office for a confrontational meeting over her lack of responsiveness to his phone calls seeking campaign solicitations.
“He said he didn’t think we should be doing business with the county, and we shouldn’t have the contract,” she said. “It was demeaning. It was as if I was a child and I was being scolded. It was rude. It was ugly.”
Fearing their Lithonia-based small business would lose its contract, the Shealeys gave in and made a $2,500 contribution to Ellis’ campaign a few weeks later.
After handing over the money, National Property Institute’s contract remained in place.
Greg Shealey, the company’s vice president, said he didn’t know what else to do but to pay Ellis.
“I would say I felt like I was giving a contribution to someone who was twisting my arm and stepping on my neck,” he testified.
To obtain a guilty verdict, prosecutors will have to prove that Ellis linked campaign donations to county contracts.
Ellis’ lead attorney, Craig Gillen, questioned the Shealeys about whether Ellis was upset about their failure to donate or their unwillingness to take his phone calls.
During one conversation when Ellis was asking for Trina Shealey for a contribution, her call with Ellis was disconnected when she responded to another incoming call to her cellphone. When she tried to call back hours later, Ellis didn’t answer.
“Mr. Ellis made it very clear, did he not, that he had concerns about lack of responsiveness to him from Ms. Shealey?” Gillen asked.
She responded that Ellis’ calls were about campaign contributions, and the meeting in his office was about about how she hadn’t always returned those calls.
Her husband apologized to Ellis and asked how to “make this right,” and Ellis said he’d think about it.
“I was thinking, once you get a contract like this, are you supposed to give campaign contributions, and I’m the only person who doesn’t know this?” Greg Shealey testified.
Prosecutors next plan to use Ellis’ own words against him Friday when they play secret recordings of his conversations with other government employees.
Through the first three days of testimony this week, the trial appears to be moving quickly, with 12 witnesses called so far.
Depending on how many more witnesses the prosecution and defense call, a jury could begin deliberations much sooner than the four-to-six weeks Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson had estimated for the trial.
If Ellis is found guilty on the most serious charge of bribery, he could be sentenced for up to 20 years in prison. If he’s acquitted, he would return to his elected job of running DeKalb County, managing a $1.2 billion annual budget and representing about 713,000 residents.
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