Burrell’s lament: It’s tough squeezing nuts for dough

A few years ago, I asked my uncle, Dick Torpy, a precinct captain in Chicago, how things were going.

He chuckled at the question. “Whenever I talk with someone,” he said, “I figure they’re wearing a wire.”

Those are words to live by in almost any endeavor — especially in DeKalb County when a grand jury is sniffing around.

I was thinking of Uncle Dick’s approach to clean living this week as suspended DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis spent several days on the stand trying to explain away some pretty damning statements. Ellis is charged with felony counts of extorting county vendors for campaign contributions and lying to a grand jury.

Usually, a defendant will choose not to testify, to avoid a withering cross-examination. But a series of secretly recorded tapes made by an underling-turned-snitch forced Ellis to let District Attorney Robert James tear him up pretty good over the course of two days.

On the tapes, Ellis sounds petty, thin-skinned and even conniving as he pushes to reach the Magic Million Mark. That’s the amount he figured he’d need to thump two unknown opponents in 2012 and retire thousands of dollars in campaign debt.

In politics one can never be too sure, so Ellis, an Ivy Leaguer with a polished image, really pours it on, using his incumbency to leverage cash from sometimes reluctant donors. He also complains at length about the whole odious process: Talking to answering machines; leaving your number; getting ignored; calling back; getting the runaround; being evaded; being lied to; forcing insincere small talk before coming up with “the ask.”

Another downside for Ellis in 2012 was getting entangled with Kelvin Walton, the county’s ethically challenged procurement director. Walton became the CEO’s inside man when it came to determining whom to target for campaign cash. Walton delivered the lists of companies working for the county so Ellis could call them.

Hitting up vendors to contribute is not illegal. In fact, it’s a time-honored tool for incumbents to get re-elected. Of course, there’s a thin line between vendors giving because they like good government and because they think some venal, angry pol might retaliate against them for not ponying up. Prosecutor James contends the latter happened here.

Walton got caught lying to a grand jury and was enticed to wear a recorder and deliver the well-groomed Ellis to prosecutors. He’s the quintessential toady, a man who agrees with anything the boss man says, pouring on the sympathy and feigning outrage when Ellis vents about getting snubbed by ungrateful vendors. Sometimes, the assistant even offers a bit of illegal revenge for his boss to consider.

Ellis comes across as frustrated and easily offended.

“People who don’t support good government and they are beneficiaries of good government?” the angry CEO fumed. “Because we have a fair procurement policy and they benefit. Maybe we shouldn’t invite some of these people to bid.”

A transcript of one hour-long recording made by Walton reads like DeKalb Bizarro World.

It starts with Walton setting the stage: “Good morning, today is my birthday, October the 25th. I’m about to go see, um, CEO Ellis.”

The 32-page transcript is a gem, veering from lewd gossip, to venting, to political strategizing, to weighing the attributes of co-workers. There’s also griping about county officials with six-figure salaries being skinflints when it comes to supporting good government in the person of W. Burrell Ellis Jr.

On the tape, Ellis immediately wishes Walton a happy birthday before putting him on the spot: “Have you made a campaign contribution?”

Uh, yeah, says Walton. “But in my sister’s name.”

He gives the name. Nope, not on the list. He gives a cousin’s name. Still not there. They change the subject, but minutes later, Ellis circles back — he’s not going to let his yes man off the hook.

Finally, Walton ventures his nephew’s name and Ellis finds that it’s there, $250.

“Y’all ought to give in your real name,” Ellis says. But the CEO then comes to a moment of realization. “I can understand from your perspective. You may not want all those commissioners hitting on you.”

By October, Ellis is in a royal funk, complaining, “I mean I’m sitting over here (in the office where he makes campaign calls) busting my ass three, four days out of the week, coming over here, still trying to raise money.”

Raising a million dollars is taxing. And, he says, it’s going to get harder for those who follow him. “Lee May don’t know how to raise a million dollars,” he opines of the county commissioner who, ironically, now warms his seat as Interim CEO. As for Commissioner Stan Watson, “I don’t even believe he knows how to raise a million.”

Another commissioner is an idiot, so much so that Ellis must mention it twice. Another had a campaign event that Ellis sums up as being well attended but “it wasn’t classy.” Must have served cocktail weenies and cheese from a can.

“The commissioners are low class,” he later vents.

The tapes have damning passages, like the time he says: “If I can’t get a follow-up call, why is my company doing business? Why are we doing business with this company?”

The prosecutors like playing that.

The defense likes to pick their own cuts: “They can not give, but they can’t be not returning phone calls and hanging up on me.”