You almost have to feel a bit sorry for poor old Dameco M., DeKalb County’s crooked grease trap inspector.
Back in May 2011, the Watershed Department’ s fats, oils and grease inspector pleaded guilty to bribery charges for pocketing money that restaurants paid for environmental permits.
After the plea, one of the department's big bosses went to the office of District Attorney Robert James, an ambitious fellow just months in the office, to say corruption was much deeper than just one ethically challenged inspector. That kicked off a year-long, far-reaching Special Purpose Grand Jury investigation. The probe culminated in a scathing report that said DeKalb government was afflicted with a culture of corruption.
The investigation also led to criminal charges against then-CEO Burrell Ellis, who stands accused of shaking down county vendors for contributions to his re-election campaign. James failed to win a conviction in Ellis’ first trial, which ended in a hung jury. A second trial is pending.
I use only Dameco’s first name to give him break and let him get on with his life. Just about every time we write about the grand jury — nine times I can count — we’ve named him as Patient Zero in the epidemic. Back in 2013, when the 80-page report was released, there was an expectation that oil and grease was going to fly everywhere. CEO Ellis was already under indictment, and others were certain to fall.
And then nothing. The DA jumped from the grease trap straight to the CEO’s office. He did not pass Go. He did not collect $200. Or other scalps.
“There doesn’t seem to be a systematic effort; you see no evidence of an investigation,” said Commissioner Jeff Rader. “Robert can say he cut the head of the snake off. But that doesn’t change the culture of the county.”
Rader and some local attorneys who have represented officials investigated by the grand jury say there has not been any buzz about a wave of subpoenas being issued, indicative of a wide-ranging probe. Normally such lawyers keep their ears to the ground for such rumblings — it means more business for them.
Sure, Commissioner Elaine Boyer got pinched by the feds last year for swindling the taxpayers out of more than $100,000.
And now the FBI is looking into repairs made at the home of interim CEO Lee May after a sewer backup. May got $6,500 in repair work at taxpayers' expense, without going through the claims process ordinary citizens do. And then the company wrote him a $4,000 check. May told reporter Johnny Edwards, who broke the Boyer story and broke the May story with Channel 2, that he knew nothing about the check and received no money.
“I have never participated in any kickbacks, any kind of pay to play, never,” he said. (Ellis, too, states his innocence; his retrial is scheduled for June 1.)
Meanwhile, of the 11 other officials and vendors mentioned in the blockbuster Special Purpose Grand Jury report, none has come to criminal prosecution. In that report, the grand jury recommended investigating former CEO Vernon Jones, Public Safety Director William “Wiz” Miller and several people connected with the water department for possible criminal violations. (Jones and Miller, too, professed their innocence.)
“When we closed up the grand jury, the enthusiasm in the prosecutor’s office was such that we thought they’d go after corruption,” said Albert Trujillo, who chaired the panel. He assumes prosecutors “focused on Ellis, figuring if they get the top dog, they can get the others.”
The situation has caused rumblings from the likes of Viola Davis, a nurse by trade who, as the head of Unhappy Taxpayer and Voter, has for years spent her off-time digging into waste and fraud in DeKalb. Davis has become a conduit for whistle blowers and employees to unearth wrongdoing in government.
DeKalb keeps her busy. She feeds what she receives to the DA, the CEO, the commissioners, police — whoever — “so no one can say, ‘We don’t know.’”
Some whistle blowers, however, will no longer send tips to the DA’s office, she said. “They say they’ve gone there before, and nothing has been done.”
She feels their pain. “I’m not happy with the Public Corruption Unit in the DA’s office,” she said. “We’re dealing with criminal corruption here, some people need to go to jail.”
The DA says he doesn’t disagree.
“It’s one thing to say you have a suspicion or concern,” James said, “it’s another thing to put it in an indictment and prove it.”
“There are some cases we’ll look at and the evidence just isn’t there. Or we’ll look at it and the statute of limitations ran out by the time we found out about it,” he said. “We were hearing about things that happened four years earlier, often times during a different administration.”
The four-year statute of limitations can be extended, with the clock ticking from the point when prosecutors learn about such crimes. But attorneys say that arguments about who knew what when can drag out for months and years before a case ever goes to trial.
Part of the reason for not jumping on things, James said, is that the Public Integrity Unit was short-staffed two years ago and now has just three lawyers devoted full time to the effort. Besides, he’s still drinking from a fire hydrant.
“The allegations in DeKalb County are coming faster than one can manage,” he said.
Incorporating police into such investigations, he said, means an inherent lack of independence. In fact, one of the allegations aired by the grand jury was that police higher-ups quashed an investigation into the water department. Tuesday, James’ office indicted a cop on unrelated bribery charges.
“We’re passing through a crucible of sorts, and I do believe we’ll be better on the other side,” he said. Mixing his metaphors, he also likened himself to a doctor treating a cancer patient and talked about the importance of meeting the disease head-on.
He said he’s been communicating with the feds. He also said other investigations are pending and new indictments are possible.
In the meantime, we’ll have to wait to see what Doctor James has up his scrubs.
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