Tuesday, June 17, 2014

And It Begins

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed a wide array of documents associated with charge cards issued to DeKalb County commissioners and other county employees.

The subpoena represents another step in the investigation of possible purchasing card misuse following reports by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News about commissioners’ personal expenses on their government debit cards.

A copy of the subpoena, dated June 5, was provided by the office of Interim DeKalb County CEO Lee May following a request by Channel 2.

The subpoena seeks purchasing card account statements, receipts, invoices, reimbursement records and signed user agreements.

The AJC has reported this year about commissioners’ spending of taxpayer money at Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Depot, the Apple online store and restaurants across the Atlanta area. Their spending records were obtained by the newspaper following open records requests.
Please read the full story on MyAJC.com.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please pass the popcorn.

Anonymous said...

Happy to read it's Federal rather than local folks doing the investigation. I'll pay for the popcorn.

Anonymous said...

Would love to see the Feds request all of Vermin Jones's P card purchases while he ruled the roost like a Queen Bee. He blew county funds for personally picked private companies, he most likely misused his P card too.

Anonymous said...

The P-Card is silliness the media was able to discover with a simple cursory open records request. Imagine the real evidence that needs uncovering via surprise search warrants as in Ellis's case. Let's hope real detective work is being done and not just a dog & pony show as is the norm in Dekalb.

Anonymous said...

The P-cards are peanuts compared to the illegal contracts that have wasted our taxpayer dollars, starting with Vernon Jones and continued with Burrell Ellis and now with Lee May. Maybe Burrell will start singing soon before his trial.

The $1.35 Billion Watershed CIP Program has been corrupt from the start and it is getting worse.

1.) The county released an updated "Budget Book" yesterday showing this CIP program will now cost us $1.69 Billion. No clear explanation for the $340M cost overruns but:

2.)$5M loss for the construction of Snapfinger Plant Phase I (blamed on the contractor Desmear, but county has not released results of its internal investigation after almost one year of shutting the project down. Desmear was mentioned in the Grand jury Report).

3.) Now a "$26M change order" for Parsons to re-design/re-work when we already paid them $30M to design the Snapfinger Plant. Parsons used EGM (Art Queen is Vernon's buddy) as a subcontractor and the county knew they were not qualified for engineering services. Looks like this team will get to blow more of our money illegally.

4.) The loss to the residents whose homes were damaged during the blasting for the Snapfinger Phase I construction project. No report on how much was or will be paid out.

The Grand Jury testimony where Nina Hall admitted to taking cash money that Kelvin Walton got from MME (Barry Bennett) and the Collaborative Firm (Micheal Hightower).

DeKalb County residents and businesses should file a class action lawsuit for the waste and corruption. The DeKalb businesses that are getting work can be counted on one hand and they are either a close friend of Kelvin Walton and/or politically connected to commissioners. The county is cooking the numbers on the residents that are being hired.

We will be like the city of Birmingham, AL or Detroit, MI if something is not done soon to fix this mess.

A Concerned and Frustrated Citizen

Anonymous said...

Since our Director has publicly adorned our CEO that is under indictment, what will that say of his investigative/police prowess once guilt is proven?

Anonymous said...

When Vernon Jones was CEO he handed contracts to vendors on a gold platter. He just picked up his phone and told Department Heads who to use when items were needed. Now this crook wants to be our Sheriff. What a pathetic joke of a leader this stooge was and would be should he accidentally get elected.

Anonymous said...

Yep, so long as you contributed to his "campaign fund" as required to do business in Dekalb.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/federal-trial-could-expose-dekalb-corruption/ngPBH/

Anonymous said...

Thanks AJC for the post at 6:12 directing the unsuspecting reader to your premium [??seriously??] story. Wait one day and it will be on the WSB/Ch.2 news site. My parrot won't poop on that paper, offends him because its not worth crap.

Anonymous said...

The Blog Master is biased. Prints what he wants to. doesn't like be critiqued.

Anonymous said...

The commissioners should have purchased $5 gift cards for the lovely citizens of Dekalb.

Anonymous said...

If the commissioners could get away with this, what are the smaller departments doing. There needs to be a county wide investigation that includes lower level employees used to do the dirty work. The problem with most investigations is that nobody ask the little guys who know everything.