Christina Shealey testified Wednesday she didn’t want her family-owned business to give a campaign contribution to DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis because she was afraid it could lead to trouble.
Shealey worried there would be ethical problems, given that her company held a contract with the county. “You could end up in court, like I am today,” Shealey said on the second day of testimony in Ellis’ corruption trial.
She didn’t consider the repercussions if she just ignored the request.
Ellis is charged in a nine-count indictment with extortion, bribery and perjury. Prosecutors say he strong-armed vendors like Shealey for campaign contributions, threatening to withhold county work if they didn’t give. He then lied to a grand jury about his role in awarding contracts, they say.
Ellis says he is not guilty. His lawyers argue he told county departments to withhold work from vendors who angered him by not returning his phone calls. It had nothing to do with whether those vendors gave to his campaign, his lawyers say.
The chief executive’s first trial on the charges ended last year with a hung jury after the panel deliberated for 11 days without reaching a consensus.
Shealey testified Wednesday that Ellis subjected her and her husband to a dressing down in his office a few weeks after the missed phone calls to ask for a campaign donation. Ellis also was angry that the one phone call he had with Shealey was cutoff.
“It was very, very ugly. Our contract was threatened because I did not respond to phone calls for a campaign contribution,” Shealey testified.
Shealey co-owns National Property Institute with her husband, and they had a contract to rehabilitate run down properties in DeKalb.
Shealey said she and her husband eventually gave money to Ellis’ 2012 re-election campaign. Rene Johnson, the company’s broker, also testified, saying said their contract was never again threatened after the contribution was made.
Earlier in the day, former county purchasing director Kelvin Walton described Ellis as a man who made sure those who crossed him suffered consequences.
Walton testified that he complied with his boss’ orders to cut off vendors who didn’t respond to campaign solicitation telephone calls because he was afraid he’d be fired.
Walton, who secretly recorded conversations with Ellis to avoid charges perjury charges for lying to a special purpose grand jury, testified a total of eight hours over Tuesday and Wednesday. Both the prosecutor and Ellis’ lawyers said Walton could be called back.
In contrast, Walton testified for four days during Ellis’ first trial.
Walton is key to the prosecution because he recorded in-person and telephone conversations with Ellis during which the CEO complained that vendors had not returned his campaign solicitation calls. Ellis went on to say in the recorded conversations that DeKalb should not do business with those companies if they were not responsive to the head of a county that paid them significant amounts of money.
Walton repeatedly was described as a liar. He admitted he twice lied to a special grand jury investigating corruption in DeKalb’s Department of Watershed Management.
But prosecutors argue the recordings Walton made confirm his testimony.
Craig Gillen, one of Ellis’ lawyers, pointed out that Walton controlled which conversations with Ellis were recorded.
“Kelvin Walton is the man who makes the decision when to put the recorder in his pocket and when he doesn’t,” Gillen said.
“So the only thing we have to corroborate what Kelvin Walton says is on these tapes.”
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