“This is a friend of mine. Would you help him out?”

That’s how the latest DeKalb County scandal may have begun.

A local businessman says he was asked to repair damage at a DeKalb elected official’s home, for a discount.

But taxpayers ended up paying about $6,500 for the work. And once that money was in hand, the company issued a $4,000 check to the official.

Who ended up with the cash?

The official – interim CEO Lee May – says it wasn’t him.

The businessman said he knew nothing about it – though he thought it was odd all along.

Now, what started with raw sewage bubbling out of a commode has some smelling the stench of corruption in DeKalb again.

Read about it at MyAJC.com or in Sunday's newspaper.

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Students in Jeremy Lowe's fourth grade class at Parkside Elementary read "warm-up plays" they wrote on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. Atlanta Public Schools saw significant improvement in fourth grade math and reading scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress. (Miguel Martinez/ AJC)

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez