Recent accusations lodged by suspended DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis against District Attorney Robert James are baseless because they rely on “blatant falsehoods,” the county’s top prosecutor said in court motions filed Monday.
The hostile pretrial litigation in the public corruption case against Ellis has now become even more incendiary, with DeKalb prosecutors accusing Ellis’ lawyers of issuing “harassing and retaliatory” subpoenas against James that seek to damage him politically.
Last week, Ellis’ legal team accused James of engaging in illegal activity during the investigation that led to Ellis’ indictment on corruption charges. It accused James of illegally videotaping Ellis during the probe and said an unidentified member of the DeKalb District Attorney Office’s staff told James he had broken the law.
In court motions filed Monday, DeKalb prosecutors did not specifically mention this accusation. Instead, they responded to Ellis’ “most recent filing,” saying it “depends entirely on anonymous sources and baseless accusations.”
The motion is “coupled with unsupported accusations of very serious wrongdoing” and deserves “no more credence than the remainder of the baseless charges leveled by defendant Ellis.”
Any allegation of wrongdoing by James, the motion said, “is flatly denied and deserves no more comment than that.”
In November, Ellis’ lawyers also accused James and interim DeKalb CEO Lee May of essentially committing the same crime that Ellis is accused of: theft of government property. James and May used county employees to raise money for a gala that was nothing more than a political event used to promote their own agendas, the motion alleged.
But the event — the 2013 Senior Ball — directly benefited the county’s senior citizens, DeKalb prosecutors said in court motions filed Monday. In contrast, Ellis used county employees for his own political benefit and profit, the motion said.
“Indeed, by Ellis’ skewed logic, a criminal action that could only benefit himself (by illegally strong-arming personal campaign contributions from DeKalb County vendors) is analogized to benefiting DeKalb County senior citizens through the planning and funding of the 5th Annual DeKalb County Senior Ball,” the motion said. “The defense argument is as ridiculous as it is meritless.”
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