Mitzi Bickers, the former city of Atlanta official and get-out-the vote guru credited with helping former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed win his first term in office, will not be getting a new trial in her bribery case.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied a request by attorneys for Bickers to retry her because of errors they believe U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones made two years ago in her conviction on nine of 12 felony counts.
In a three-page decision, the court’s panel stood by Jones, saying: “After consideration of the briefs and the record, and with the benefit of oral argument, we find no reversible error” on issues cited in Bickers’ appeal for a new trial.
Bickers, who had been Atlanta’s Human Services Director under Reed, was found guilty by a federal jury in March 2022 after being indicted in a pay-for-play contracting scandal that rocked Atlanta City Hall in the former mayor’s second term. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison — by far the longest sentence of any of the 10 officials or contractors who did time after being caught up in the scandal.
The Atlanta pastor was accused of receiving about $2 million in exchange for steering some $17 million in contracts to contractors Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell Jr. and Charles P. Richards Jr. Both men, who pled guilty to bribery charges, testified against Bickers during her trial.
The convictions included conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering, filing false tax returns and wire fraud.
Bickers attorneys, in oral arguments before the three-judge panel on Tuesday, alleged that Mitchell was a paid FBI informant until around 2012 and that his job at the time he was accused of conspiring with Bickers was to bribe officials. They maintained that Jones erred in limiting what jurors could hear of the accusation during cross examination, as well as abused the court’s discretion in denying Bickers’ motion for mistrial.
The court, however, said: “The evidence at trial established that Bickers, as an employee with the City of Atlanta, accepted bribes to influence the selection of certain contractors for Atlanta’s sidewalk repair, bridge repair, and snow removal projects. The contractors, in turn, inflated their bids to personally profit and to cover Bickers’ bribe amounts, costing Atlanta millions of dollars.”
The judges also declined to grant Bickers a new trial stemming from the four wire fraud convictions in the case. Federal prosecutors plan to drop the charges because of rulings by courts of appeal — including the U.S. Supreme Court — that redefined conditions under which fraud accusations could be prosecuted.
“The withdrawal of those counts does not require a new trial because the evidence supporting those counts did not cause prejudicial spillover to the remaining conviction counts,” the ruling says.
The court did, however, order the wire fraud conviction back to District Court for “limited resentencing reflecting the removed counts.”
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