WSB's Veronica Waters reports retired travel agent Gabe Pascarella testified that he had a dedicated credit card for then-Mayor Campbell's purchases, charges for which Campbell repaid him monthly in cash. The Government produced month after month of credit card bills showing plane ticket and phone card purchases, sometimes adding up to over $1,000-$3,600 in a month.

The card charges often listed several $50 phone card purchases and flights on various airlines from 1997 to 1999. In December of 1999, there was a charge for $2,475 at a San Francisco boutique. Pascarella said the Mayor had called him from there, telling him he wanted to make a purchase and asking him to put it on the credit card.

"For a friend?" asked Assistant U. S. Attorney Sally Yates.

"Yes," Pascarella replied.

One by one, Yates tendered about 15 travel records from Supersonic Travel, then asked Pascarealla to identify the first one, which was displayed on a wall screen for jurors. On it were the names of travelers including Bill Campbell and Marion Brooks, a former anchor and reporter for WSB-TV in Atlanta. Brooks, who is now married and expecting a child, is on the prosecution's witness list and may be called to the stand during the second week of February. She works for Chicago's WMAQ.

Yates then said they would not go through the rest of the records.

Campbell's wife, Sharon, was not in court Monday. The former mayor told reporters she had been helping their daughter with school assignments and is expected back in court Tuesday morning.

Pascarella, who told the jury that he and Campbell were like brothers, sometimes smiled at each other as Pascarella testified. He said the pair frequently played poker at different friends' houses, playing for pots which could get up into the thousands of dollars. At those games, said Pascarella, he would sometimes "take a lien on" Campbell's winnings, to pay for the credit card charges.

The pair sometimes traveled together with their wives; other times, the two of them joined other friends of the Mayor and traveled on private flights to a couple of high-profile boxing matches and spent time in a casino.

On cross-examination, Pascarella said other than an exchange among friends, he had never seen anyone give Campbell money or anything of value, nor had he seen anyone give Campbell anything in exchange for an act from the city of Atlanta.

When he told Campbell he'd been contacted by the FBI in 2000 and that he would be talking to a grand jury, Pascarella said Campbell's advice was simply: "Tell the truth."

Pascarella says Campbell also recommended a lawyer to him. That attorney brokered an immunity deal for anything Pascarella might say which could incriminate him, he testified. Campbell also arranged to pay the attorney's legal fees. After his grand jury testimony, he said, federal agents told Pascarella there was nothing prohibiting him from talking to Campbell or the ex-Mayor's lawyers, and says he did so.

Yates asked Pascarella about his testimony to the grand jury that Campbell was not the type of person to take a bribe. He paused briefly.

"I don't have the same conviction today that I had then," Pascarella said.

Monday, 30 January 2006