The jury considering corruption charges against DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis deliberated for about five and a half hours Friday and several times returned to the courtroom to review evidence such as recordings and emails.
This was the third day the jury has deliberated the case against Ellis, who's accused of strong-arming county contractors into giving him campaign contributions. The jury will continue reviewing the charges Monday.
Jurors filed into court to listen to a recording in which Ellis asks a DeKalb employee to place a note in the county’s file for Power and Energy Services, one of the contractors he’s accused of extorting. Ellis said the county should stop doing business with Power and Energy because they didn’t return phone calls.
“We’re not going to have situations where people are non-responsive,” Ellis said on the recording. “They can not give, but they can’t be not returning phone calls, hanging up on you.”
The jury also looked at an email sent by Joanne Wise, a lobbyist for an IT company called Ciber, hours after a heated phone conversation with Ellis in March 2012. The jury previously viewed the email Thursday.
Wise testified that Ellis threatened to end Ciber's contract with DeKalb and to tell her bosses she was to blame after she said the business wouldn't make a campaign contribution.
But Ellis’ defense has argued that Wise’s email to her boss tells a different story.
In the email, Wise wrote that she apologized to Ellis for not calling him back, and that Ellis had said “it was a good thing we weren’t in contract with the county anymore.”
Ciber is one of four companies that Ellis allegedly targeted, according to the nine-count indictment against him. Ellis is charged with bribery, extortion and perjury.
The jury of six women and six men returned to court another time to review an email sent by a DeKalb employee in which Ellis asked for the name of Wise’s boss so he could contact him directly.
The jury heard to more than two weeks of testimony before beginning deliberations late Wednesday.
This is the second time Ellis has been on trial for the same charges. His first trial ended when a jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict on any of the counts last fall.
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