When Mitch Skandalakis pleaded with a state bar panel last year to let him practice law again, he acted nothing like the flamboyant politician of the 1990s known for acidic smear ads and ceaseless attacks on Atlanta city hall.
This Skandalakis, aged a decade since he fell out of the public spotlight, openly wept.
He cried out of shame, he said, and for all that he lost to hubris at the apex of a once-promising political career: his family, his savings, his law practice and his reputation.
“When you’re totally humiliated by something you’ve done,” he said recently, “and then you have to get up in front of a group of people, it’s extremely difficult.”
Demetrios John "Mitch" Skandalakis, 55, is on a quest to get his name name back. The former Fulton County Commission chairman and onetime Republican candidate for lieutenant governor insists he isn't trying to revive his political career, which imploded more than a decade ago with a federal corruption investigation and a six-month prison sentence.
He says he just wants to be a lawyer again. He wants to be trusted again. He wants his hometown to forgive him.
“It’s kind of like redemption,” Skandalakis said of his efforts to be readmitted to the Georgia Bar. “It’s more of a personal thing for me. It’s sort of like closure.”
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has restored his civil and political rights, and this month the Georgia Supreme Court declared Skandalakis fit to be a lawyer again, undoing his 2005 disbarment. All that stands between him and a courtroom is the state bar exam, which he could take as early as July.
The Supreme Court noted that he “expressed remorse” and “took full responsibility for his conduct.”
Speaking publicly in depth for the first time about his criminal charges, Skandalakis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he never took bribes from a county contractor, as the contractor alleged. But he admits taking monthly payments that made it look that way, as well as what he ultimately pleaded guilty to: lying to an FBI agent about whether he ever voted in a way that helped businessman George Greene.
For a firebrand crusader for government reform, it was a staggering fall from grace.
Pioneer on tax issue
A pioneer of the North Fulton anti-tax movement, Skandalakis had used voters' disillusionment with the county government to catapult into its top elected seat, vowing to rein in a wasteful bureaucracy.
After a failed effort to recall former Fulton County Commission Chairman Michael Lomax and a brief stint in the state House of Representatives, Skandalakis became the first Republican to win countywide in Fulton in the 20th century. In a 1993 upset, he defeated Martin Luther King III, the son of the slain civil rights leader, for the chairmanship, proving for the first time that the northern suburbs could wield political force.
Fast-forward two decades. Cities born amid the tax-revolt fervor have taken control of hundreds of millions of tax dollars from DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett county governments.
The GOP has firm control of the state government, and this year Northside Republicans launched a fusillade of measures cracking down on perceived waste in Fulton County. Among them were bills that make it easier to fire employees and harder to raise taxes. A redistricting plan that gives North Fulton another vote on the County Commission faces a federal civil rights challenge by Southside Democrats.
“In a lot of ways, many of the issues that Mitch talked about, fought about, are still relevant today,” said Rusty Paul, a former Republican state senator and state Republican Party chairman. “He was the first politician who was able to mobilize a winning coalition on this issue, and it was a bipartisan coalition.”
Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos, who was embroiled in a three-decade-long fight for cityhood during Skandalakis’ heyday, said, “He latched onto a good issue. He rode it, and he was very good at it.
“It just happened too fast,” she said. “And it fell apart.”
‘Gutter politics’
As commission chairman, Skandalakis pushed to lower the tax rate and raise police salaries. He led the move to oust former Tax Commissioner Sondra Burnett, ushering in her replacement, Arthur Ferdinand, and his system where unpaid taxes are collected by selling liens to private investors.
In 1998, in one of the crowning achievements of his tenure, he helped pull down palm trees in the government center atrium that had become symbols to many of government overindulgence.
Also that year, Skandalakis ran a failed campaign for lieutenant governor perhaps best remembered for an attack ad that depicted Mark Taylor as a patient in a drug-treatment center, with an actor who resembled him dressed in a tattered robe shuffling down a long hallway.
Skandalakis later settled a libel lawsuit, agreeing to pay $50,000 to a charity selected by Taylor.
“That campaign was just a disaster,” Skandalakis said. “We made a lot of stupid decisions that were basically generated by a lack of money. When you get to a point in a campaign where you’re the nominee … and the money dries up, you try to replace it with (free) media.”
It wasn’t the only time Skandalakis admitted wrongdoing and paid a penalty to settle libel claims.
In 1995, he took responsibility for financing a campaign flier that contained an altered photo of Gordon Joyner, who is black. A Skandalakis ally was challenging Joyner’s re-election bid to the Fulton commission. The photo darkened Joyner’s skin and doctored his features.
Joyner sued Skandalakis for libel, and the settlement called for an undisclosed payment to Joyner, a public letter of apology and an admission of guilt. Skandalakis also paid a $2,000 fine for violating state ethics laws in connection with financing the Joyner brochure.
Bob Holmes, a former Democratic state representative, called Skandalakis a dealer in “gutter politics” who would “do almost anything to get elected.”
“You guys made Mitch — the media,” Holmes said.
Mistake’s cost was high
Federal authorities began investigating Skandalakis in 2000, the year after he left office. Greene admitted bribing former Commissioner Michael Hightower and told investigators he also paid Skandalakis and the chairman's chief of staff, Josh Kenyon.
The commission chairman — who once complained that officeholders’ low pay made them susceptible to taking bribes — was taking $5,000 per month from a county contractor. Skandalakis said at the time, and still says, it was a legal retainer.
But during the investigation, an agent asked Skandalakis whether he had taken any official action to benefit Greene or his company, Sable Communications. He said no, but he had voted in favor of a contract on which Sable was a subcontractor.
Kenyon and Hightower pleaded guilty to accepting bribes. Years after his meteoric rise, Skandalakis pleaded guilty to lying.
“I should have never represented George Greene,” Skandalakis said, “or placed myself in a potential conflict of interest. I should have never done it, period.”
As Skandalakis began his political exile, his wife divorced him and moved to North Carolina with his two daughters. Almost as painful was the shame he had brought on his father, John Skandalakis, a Greek immigrant, Emory professor, surgeon and former chairman of the state Board of Regents.
It created a schism between father and son that never quite healed before John Skandalakis died in 2009.
Skandalakis has since refocused his life. He heads up loss prevention for Waffle House’s corporate headquarters in Norcross, vetting job candidates and investigating allegations of employee theft. Waffle House executives wrote letters on his behalf to the state bar panel.
He said he’s not sure what he wants to do if he’s allowed to practice law again. It’s something of a symbolic move, he says, a chance to publicly atone for his moral lapse.
Many of his former contemporaries, including allies and opponents, seem willing to forgive him. One letter of recommendation came from former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes.
“I know why I went into office,” Skandalakis said. “I didn’t go in to get rich, to make a buck off taxpayers. And you are totally redefined overnight by one thing you did. That’s a very difficult thing to live with.”
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