Former Atlanta city official Mitzi Bickers is expected to report to a Florida federal prison Tuesday to begin serving a 14-year sentence in connection to the bribery scandal that swept Atlanta City Hall in recent years.
Bickers, the get-out-the-vote guru who was credited with helping former Mayor Kasim Reed win his first term in the Atlanta mayor’s office in 2009, was convicted in March on nine of 12 charges from a federal indictment connected to the investigation, including conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who oversaw the trial, sentenced Bickers to 14 years in prison in September. Her attorneys have said they plan to appeal her conviction.
Bickers, 56, has been on house arrest since that conviction and is expected to report to FCI Marianna at noon Tuesday. The facility is a medium security prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, with just over 1,200 inmates. It is in Marianna, Florida, the seat of Jackson County, Florida.
The prison — which also includes a nearby minimum-security camp — is about 66 miles west of Tallahassee, Florida’s capitol. There have been a couple of escapes from the facility in the past few years, including an escape reported in October.
Caren Morrison, an associate law professor at Georgia State University and a former federal prosecutor, said federal prisons have a better reputation than their state counterparts, but Bickers has still lost her freedom.
“Prison is prison,” Morrison said, noting that there are state prisons that are well run, too. “None of that is going to be that great.
“The stereotype is that the federal prisons are better run, cleaner, more secure, less rampant crime. But there still is going to be crime and danger and unpleasant conditions for prisoners regardless.”
During services streamed on Facebook from her church Sunday, Bickers, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in southeast Atlanta, appeared to be in good spirits. Wearing green camouflage pants and matching vest over a green shirt with white piping, Bickers sang with the church choir, prayed with the congregation and preached.
“Somebody asked me last night, ‘You know, how is it that you haven’t lost your mind?’ I said I did, I lost it a long time ago when I took on the mind of Christ,” she told the congregation.
In the indictment of Bickers, prosecutors alleged she steered some $17 million in sidewalk, bridge work and snow removal contracts to contractors Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell Jr. and Charles P. Richards Jr., who previously pleaded guilty and testified against Bickers.
Bickers received some $2 million in bribes in return, using her connections and influence before and after she left City Hall as well as bribing other officials in the process.
“Today a federal jury found that Mitzi Bickers conspired to use her influence as a high-ranking City of Atlanta official to steer lucrative city contracts to those willing to pay bribes,” U.S. Attorney Kurt Erskine said in a statement after her conviction. “The illicit arrangement netted millions of dollars for Bickers and the city contractors willing to pay to play.”
About the Author
