The trial so far
- Jurors have heard two weeks of testimony mostly from witnesses for the prosecution. Defense attorneys for DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis began presenting their case Wednesday.
- Kelvin Walton, a key witness for the prosecution, testified seven times about secret recordings he made of Ellis' conversations about campaign contributions and county contractors. Walton admitted he lied to a special grand jury and that is why he agreed to wear a wire for the District Attorney's Office investigation.
- Four contractors who Ellis is accused of pressuring for campaign contributions testified about their interactions with Ellis.
- Ellis took the stand in his own defense to tell jurors his side of the story.
When DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis approached businesses about donating to his re-election fund, prosecutors say he was so driven to pay off his campaign debts that he threatened those who wouldn't give.
Ellis’ campaign owed $48,089 in fall 2012, and prosecutors allege he illegally pressured contractors to contribute so he could avoid having to repay the debt himself.
Ellis has said he never punished contractors who refused to give, but he was concerned about businesses that were rude to him or didn’t return phone calls.
Whether he crossed the line is a matter for jurors in his ongoing corruption trial to decide. But since the two-year saga of criminal charges, suspensions and trials started, some have questioned whether such a dogged pursuit of funds was even necessary.
Ellis was an incumbent and the heavy favorite in the race, having collected $723,388 in contributions compared to the combined $169,138 raised by his two opponents. He won the Democratic primary election in a landslide.
When it was all over, Ellis owed money to vendors for consulting services, mailings, promotional videos and website support, according to campaign finance reports. He didn't have an opponent in the general election, but he continued to raise money to repay the debts.
“He had skin in the game. Those vendors could have forced him to personally pay,” said Marc Hershovitz, an attorney who advises mostly Democratic candidates on campaign finance law. “A competently managed campaign would never allow itself, when it’s lapping the field that much, to go into debt.”
During Ellis’ trial, Bethany Whetzel, a staff attorney for the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, testified that candidates who take on debt can be held personally liable unless their campaigns are incorporated, which Ellis’ wasn’t.
In opening statements, prosecutor Lawanda Hodges emphasized Ellis’ personal motives as she told the jury the trial was about “debt, desperation and deceit.”
But defense attorney Craig Gillen responded that there’s nothing illegal about calling businesses and asking them to make campaign contributions. Gillen said Ellis never threatened them.
“I was using a list and I was raising campaign money, soliciting campaign contributions, ” Ellis testified during his first trial. “I didn’t believe then, and I don’t believe now, there’s anything wrong with doing that.”
It’s not unusual for candidates to raise money after an election to repay debts, said Douglas Chalmers, an attorney who provides campaign finance advice to Republicans.
“I think it’s perfectly legitimate for candidates, even for those who are unopposed, to raise money,” said Chalmers, who wasn’t speaking specifically about Ellis’ case. “The real issue is whether or not there’s any sort of quid pro quo or pressure imposed for those campaign contributions. That would be a different issue.”
Ellis cleared the $48,089 debt by Oct. 25, 2012, a week and a half before the general election, according to campaign filings. He later took on another $10,000 in debt for political consulting that campaign filings show he still hadn’t repaid as of Jan. 31, 2015.
“Once in office, a lot of public officials will do anything to maintain that power, and spending a lot of money on their campaigns is a way to do that, even when it’s not necessary,” said William Perry, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, a government watchdog group. “There’s almost a sense of entitlement that comes with these positions. It leads to abuses of the system.”
Ellis is charged with breaking the law as he solicited four companies for contributions.
In one case, a company called Power and Energy Services stopped receiving work from the county soon after a contentious phone call with Ellis about political contributions. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported last year that county records showed Power and Energy Services was paid $42,926 under a $250,000 generator maintenance contract until November 2012, when a competing company, Prime Power, received all further work and was paid $517,633 from June 2012 to May 2014.
Prime Power contributed $1,500 to Ellis; Power and Energy Service refused to donate.
In another case, National Property Institute received all of its work from the county after contributing $2,500 to Ellis’ campaign on Oct. 23, 2012.
The company was paid $960,553 from January 2013 to June 2015 under a county contract to rehab foreclosed homes, according to payment records obtained by the AJC under the Georgia Open Records Act.
Ellis’ first trial ended with a hung jury. The jury in Ellis’ retrial is expected to begin deliberating his case as soon as this week.
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