A bribery case that has haunted Gwinnett County for nearly four years may be resolved Tuesday.
Former County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly, accused of accepting $1 million from a developer in exchange for arranging a $16 million land deal, will be in Superior Court for a hearing that “may result in the resolution of the case,” District Attorney Danny Porter said Monday. He and Kenerly’s attorney, Patrick McDonough, declined to comment until after the hearing Tuesday.
Along with Commissioner Shirley Lasseter’s bribery conviction two years ago, the Kenerly accusations tarnished the reputation of Georgia’s second-largest county.
Kenerly is accused of one felony charge of bribery and two misdemeanor counts of failing to disclose a financial interest in properties the county rezoned.
According to court documents, Kenerly accepted 20 payments totaling $1 million from developer David Jenkins, beginning in 2007. The district attorney has said the payments were a bribe for Kenerly’s support of a deal in which Gwinnett bought land from Jenkins to expand Rabbit Hill Park in Dacula.
Gwinnett paid Jenkins $16.3 million for 89 acres that he’d paid $8.9 million for a year and a half earlier. Kenerly made the motion to approve the deal.
Kenerly has maintained the money he received from Jenkins was to cash out of a business partnership with the developer. Jenkins, who was granted immunity from prosecution if he answered questions truthfully, also told investigators the payments were not related to the land purchase.
Kenerly was initially charged in 2010 by a special grand jury that spent 10 months investigating dubious county land deals. The grand jury concluded that the Gwinnett County Commission used taxpayer money to benefit commissioners’ friends and political allies, paying millions of dollars too much for some parcels in several deals.
The grand jury decided not to charge then-commission Chairman Charles Bannister with perjury when he resigned that same year.
The grand jury investigation sparked ethics reforms and new county procedures for buying land. It also sparked a political firestorm.
In an unrelated case two years later,Lasseter, her son, a Gwinnett developer and a Hall County businessman pleaded guilty to bribery charges in a federal corruption investigation. Lasseter admitted accepting $36,500 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for her vote for a Boggs Road real estate development. All four were sentenced to prison.
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