Two months after he pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to pay $1 million in bribes for contracts at City Hall, Elvin "E.R." Mitchell Jr. was back in front of a judge Tuesday facing foreclosure on his two homes, hefty property tax bills and new questions about his honesty.
Mitchell, a key figure in a federal investigation of a pay-to-play scheme in Atlanta’s central government, is accused by his estranged wife Marjorie Mitchell, of taking out the maximum in second mortgages on homes they own in Atlanta and Hilton Head without her knowledge.
Marjorie Mitchell’s attorney Esther Panitch said E.R. Mitchell cashed out $600,000 in equity on the Hilton Head property and $400,000 on a house on Desoto Falls Court in Atlanta. The move caused both homes to go into foreclosure, even though they had long been paid off.
“Mr. Mitchell has allowed the marital estate to be wasted,” Panitch told the court.
He also is accused of racking up an overdue tax bill of $8,000 on the Hilton Head home and a special assessment of $4,000 on his home on Desoto Falls Court in Atlanta. Marjorie Mitchell has moved out and is living in an apartment.
Tuesday’s proceedings also brought up Mitzi Bickers, another central figure in the federal investigation.
Marjorie Mitchell's attorney alleges that E.R. Mitchell fradulently put property in Bickers name. Bickers, a one-time chair of the Atlanta Public School board, played a key get-out-the-vote role in Reed's mayoral run in 2009. Federal authorities subpoenaed records from the city concerning Bickers last year. She has not been charged nor named as a suspect in the case.
An attorney for Bickers, Kevin Ross, attended a status conference for the divorce, but did not attend the court hearing.
Fulton Judge Constance Russell ordered E.R. Mitchell to cease any spending on the 10 to 15 companies for which he is allowed to write checks while the court tries to determine his financial status and the extent of his business holdings. Russell’s order also stops others, including Mitchell’s family members, from writing or signing checks on any of the accounts.
Mitchell’s lawyer, Odis Williams, said his client is broke and has had to borrow money from family to pay attorney fees.
When Mitchell tried to complain that he had third parties to pay, Russell was unfazed that they wouldn’t get paid because of her ruling.
“What you tell them is, ‘Tell it to the judge,’” she said.
The court appearance is the latest development in an investigation that has rocked City Hall since January when Mitchell was charged and pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme prosecutors said led to millions in city contracts.
Since then a second contractor, Charles P. Richards Jr., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in February and Reed released more than 1.4 million pages of documents the city turned over to federal investigators.
Adam Smith, the city’s chief procurement officer, was firedin late February, the same day federal agents seized items in his office. Smith has not be accused of any wrongdoing.
Williams, E.R. Mitchell's attorney, said Tuesday Bickers was added to the divorce filing to draw media attention. He said Bickers was only involved in the transfer of a DeKalb County home from Mitchell's company to Bickers.
“Mitzi Bickers has no role in all of this,” he said. “She tried to join Mitzi Bickers, I believe, for the sensationalism.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, previously reported that Bickers and E.R. Mitchell share a number of business connections in addition to the DeKalb property. Bickers formerly worked as a vice president operations at E.R. Mitchell Company, one of Mitchell’s firms, according to a resolution honoring her in 2012 at the state Capitol. She also acquired property from a Mitchell company in Atlanta and later deeded it back to a separate Mitchell firm in 2015.
Bickers also was a party with Mitchell in a lawsuit involving defaulted real estate loans. That case settled in 2014.
Judge Russell grilled E.R Mitchell on his income and recent checks he had written through E.R. Mitchell Company, which he said his wife owns. Mitchell said that Atlanta Public Schools, the sole client of the company, paid the firm $19,600 in February and again in March.
When asked by Russell what happened to the funds, Mitchell said February’s payment was used to pay insurance, subcontractors and other bills that he did not specify. About half of the money paid to the company in March has been spent, mostly to the same entities.
Russell ordered that no more payments be made until more information could be learned about Mitchell’s income and business holdings.
“Whatever funds go into those companies will stay there, period,” the judge said. “We’re stopping everything that may be connected to the marital estate.”
Staff writer J. Scott Trubey contributed to this article.
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