Federal prosecutors are planning to request wire fraud convictions be dismissed against former Atlanta city official Mitzi Bickers, after recent court rulings suggested they wouldn’t be upheld on appeal.
In a filing last Friday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal prosecutors asked the court to return the case back to U.S. District Judge Steve Jones so he can drop the wire fraud convictions and resentence Bickers.
They argue that Bicker’s failure to report outside income to the city of Atlanta, then her employer, may not meet the threshold of what constitutes wire fraud after recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts of appeal narrowed the definition.
“Although the Eleventh Circuit has yet to consider the issue, recent Supreme Court precedent and out-of-circuit decisions have rejected wire fraud prosecutions premised on lies which allow an employee to maintain employment and that are only indirectly related to the money or property obtained,” the government’s filing says. “Because of these post-trial developments in the law, the government intends to seek dismissal of Bickers’s four wire fraud counts.”
Bickers, a get-out-the-vote guru who is credited with helping former Mayor Kasim Reed win his first term in office, was convicted by a federal jury in March 2022 of participating in a pay-to-play contracting scheme that rocked Atlanta City Hall. Jurors found her guilty on nine of 12 counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering, filing false tax returns and the four counts of wire fraud.
Jones sentenced Bickers to 14 years in prison, although her re-sentencing is expected to result in a shorter prison term. Bickers is currently serving her time in a medium-security prison in Florida.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Prosecutors said Bickers, the former pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Atlanta and a former member of the Atlanta Board of Education, pocketed more than $2 million from the city over several years by steering lucrative construction contracts to Elvin R. “E.R.” Mitchell Jr. and Charles P. Richards Jr., and demanding a cut of the proceeds.
Mitchell and Richards, who pleaded guilty prior to Bickers’ conviction, testified against her.
The scandal upended Atlanta city government during the final year of Reed’s administration and cast a shadow over city politics since becoming public six years ago.
In a statement Monday, Marissa Goldberg and Drew Findling, attorneys for Bickers, said they want a new trial.
“The government finally acknowledged what the defense has been arguing for years, that the four counts of wire fraud for which she was convicted were completely baseless and contrary to law,” they said in the statement. “In their brief, the government argues that dismissing those charges and bringing Pastor Bickers back before the Court to receive a lesser sentence is sufficient, however, it is not.
“These convictions cannot just be wiped away and excised from the case. Resentencing alone would ignore the taint that permeated from these illegal convictions as well as the multitude of other issues that all necessitate a new trial,” Goldberg and Findling said.
Our reporting:
Investigative reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2017 linked former city official Mitzi Bickers to contractor Elvin R. “E.R.“ Mitchell Jr., the first person to plead guilty in the Atlanta City Hall corruption probe. The AJC found Mitchell and a second contractor paid Bickers more than $1.6 million over a period of several years, including while she worked for the city. A federal grand jury later indicted her on charges she accepted more than $2 million and conspired to help the contractors win millions in city business.
