2:26 p.m. — Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson ends proceedings until 10 a.m. on Friday. Former Chief of Staff Hakim Hilliard and Chris Morris, DeKalb's director of community development, are among those expected to testify.
1:58 p.m. — Business owner Greg Shealey said he finally gave in to pressure from DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis and made a $2,500 donation to his re-election campaign.
Shealey testified that he gave the money in hopes of keeping a $1 million county contract for his company, National Property Institute.
“I felt like I was giving a contribution to someone who was twisting my arm and stepping on my neck,” Shealey said.
12:03 p.m. — A business owner said he thought he'd have to contribute to the campaign of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis to keep his $1 million contract with the county.
Ellis was “livid” during a meeting about how National Property Institute hadn’t returned his phone calls seeking campaign contributions, said Greg Shealey, the co-owner of the company.
“I was thinking, once you get a contract like this, are you supposed to give campaign contributions, and I’m the only person who doesn’t know this? It was confusing,” Shealey told jurors.
11:16 a.m. — After a tense meeting with DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis, a business decided to give $2,500 to his campaign to try and save its $1 million county contract, a witness said Thursday.
“We didn’t want to lose the contract. We would say what we needed to say and do what we needed to do to keep the contract,” said Rena Johnson, who was a broker with National Property Institute, which had a contract to rehab foreclosed homes.
The company kept its contract after making the political donation to Ellis.
Ellis has pleaded not guilty to charges that he threatened county contractors for campaign contributions.
10:26 a.m. — Jurors in the trial of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis laughed and nodded when a business owner said she had no reason to return his call for a campaign contribution.
“It would be like the CEO of General Motors calling someone who works in one of the factories and telling them what to do,” said Trina Shealey of National Property Institute. “There are so many layers between us and the CEO. There’s no reason for us to be talking to the CEO.”
10:18 a.m. — A witness against DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis said he scolded and reprimanded her for not returning his campaign phone calls.
Trina Shealey, the co-owner of National Property Institute, said she believed Ellis was going to cancel her company’s contract with the county unless he received a campaign contribution.
“I knew he was just going to pull the contract, and it was based on me not returning the phone calls,” Shealey said.
National Property Institute had a contract with the county in 2012 to rehab foreclosed homes.
Shealey said she felt Ellis mistreated her during an October 2012 meeting in his county government office in Decatur.
“It was demeaning. It was as if I was a child and I was being scolded. It was rude. It was ugly,” Shealey said.
9:26 a.m. — The co-owner of a company allegedly threatened by suspended DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis was on the witness stand Thursday, the third day of testimony in the case.
Trina Shealey worked at National Property Institute when it received a contract from DeKalb to rehab foreclosed homes.
The indictment against Ellis alleges he told Shealey that he didn’t believe the county should be doing business with her company after she failed to return phone calls for campaign contributions.
Ellis has pleaded not guilty to accusations that he strong-armed DeKalb contractors for political contributions during his 2012 re-election campaign.
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