The corruption trial of indicted DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis will not start later this month.
Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson agreed to delay the trial, which had been set Aug. 19, hours after Ellis’ lawyers requested it Thursday morning. No new start date was set.
“Nobody wants to try a case twice, and that’s what happens if you have a conviction and then an appeal based on being rushed into trial,” said Atlanta criminal defense attorney Jill Polster, a former DeKalb prosecutor. “A delay is what’s in the best interest of DeKalb County residents.”
With the delay, those residents will see interim CEO Lee May stick around indefinitely and put more of his stamp on the county’s budget and legislative wish list. That’s because the mere request for a continuance continues Ellis’ suspension from the top job in Georgia’s third-largest county. He can return to the job if he’s exonerated.
Ellis had a right to petition for reinstatement, but would have had to do that by the end of August. The trial delay effectively removes that option. That means Ellis can focus more on the 14 felony and one misdemeanor charges he faces, of attempted extortion, theft and conspiracy. If convicted, he could potentially face up to 70 years in prison, though a sentence that stiff seems unlikely based on the possibility that some charges could be merged. Any felony conviction would result in the loss of his law license, though.
Johnson’s order also cancels a hearing scheduled Friday on other arguments in the case. That gives gives the defense team more time to try to link the criminal indictment against Ellis to the still-unpublished probe by a special grand jury.
That panel spent a year looking into allegations of corruption and kickbacks in contracts in the county’s water/sewer department. Its final report has been under seal since January and spawned a pending lawsuit from the jury foreman seeking a court order to turn the 81-page report over to the county’s Superior Court judges and then the public.
Ellis’ attorneys have already argued that the basis for the criminal charges came from that investigation, which had no authority to pursue the allegations. Johnson has not set a new date for when she will hear those arguments.
“I expect the defense will come out swinging,” said Atlanta criminal defense attorney Steve Sadow, who is not involved in the case. “And the mantra from the District Attorney’s office is going to be, ‘we’ve done nothing wrong and we are ready for trial.’ ”
Craig Gillen, Ellis’ lead attorney, did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
DA Robert James has been in court all week, in the perjury trial of Dunwoody widow Andrea Sneiderman. He declined comment through a spokesman.
However, his office filed an answer Thursday, challenging the attempt to tie the criminal case to the special grand jury.
In it, Senior Chief Assistant District Attorney Leonora Grant calls claims that work is connected to the criminal charges “unfounded, uncivil and untrue” And, she wrote, even if they were not, there is no remedy to dismiss all charges.
Sadow agreed, saying “No decision in a civil case is going to stall or stop a criminal case.”
Still, the arguments have renewed attention to the special grand jury’s work. Representatives from both the DA’s office and Ellis’ defense team are expected to attend a status hearing on the panel that Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott set for next Wednesday.
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