Jury reviews evidence in case against DeKalb CEO Ellis

This is Ellis’ second trial on the charges. Last fall, the first one ended in a mistrial because jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict after 11 days of deliberations.

In court Friday

Jurors filed into court three times to review again some of the evidence presented during 11 days of testimony.

They listened 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 on the recording the county shouldn’t do business with the company because it 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 took another look 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.

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 apologized to Ellis for not calling him back, and she said Ellis told her it was a “a good thing” that the county wasn’t doing business with Ciber anymore.

The jury also reviewed an email sent by a DeKalb employee about Ellis’ request to find out the name of Wise’s boss so he could contact him directly.

Coming up

The jury of six women and six men will return to court Monday for their fourth day of deliberations.