(WSB Radio) Former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell stepped away from his federal corruption trial Tuesday to talk with reporters about the early-morning death of Coretta Scott King. Campbell called her a "dear friend" and said her death is a loss for Atlanta and the country. He remembered Mrs. King as "a wonderful leader and a great mother," and said she always remembered to send him a birthday card. One of her last gifts, he said, included copies of some of Dr. King's sermons, and the two of them talked about what a great preacher her husband had been.

Meanwhile at the trial, a one-time personal assistant to Mayor Campbell testified in tears, becoming the first person to tell the jury he witnessed a city contractor giving cash to his former boss.

WSB's Veronica Waters reports Dewey Clark, one of the Government's key witnesses in its federal corruption case, wept often on the stand as he recalled details including how he'd begun working for Campbell during his first mayoral campaign in 1993 to how the Mayor let him live rent-free in his home's basement apartment.

Clark says after Campbell was elected, he became the Mayor's personal assistant and was hired on at City Hall to handle constituent issues, including opening mail and answering complaints. Clark says he also handled all Campbell's personal matters: paying utility bills, taking clothes to the dry cleaner, delivering food.

"Anything he wanted me to do, I would do it, and I was happy to do it," said Clark, his voice breaking.

Clark says in the six years he lived in the Campbell home, he became very close to their family, and he choked up again as he described his feelings for them. "I loved Mayor Campbell. I loved his family—his kids and his wife," Clark said, blowing his nose. "They treated me very well. They were very good to me."

Clark says he even ate Thanksgiving dinner with the family, and did small chores like mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, or minor repairs at the Campbell home. He also says he played basketball with the Campbells' son, then a pre-teen.

"I was never able to beat him," Clark recalls.

Alleged Bag Man Witnesses Cash Handoffs, Collects Money

Clark testified that Fred Prewitt, the chairman of Atlanta's Civil Service Board, was a friend of Campbell's and of himself, as well. "I love Fred Prewitt," Clark declared, who said Prewitt is a Memphis native as he is.

Clark said he often traveled to casinos with Prewitt and Campbell, but says Prewitt was not much of a gambler—perhaps putting two to five dollars in a slot machine, losing it, and quitting.

He also testified that Prewitt once brought a contractor to the Campbell home to look at a leak. Prewitt, he says, paid for the resulting $2,500 waterproofing job in July 1995, writing out a check to Clark which Clark says he later cashed and gave to the Mayor. The Mayor, he says, then gave him a check which Clark took to pay the contractor. Prewitt paid for other things at the Campbell home, testified Clark, including a small $400 freezer and an air conditioning unit.

Clark got choked up again as he testified about a trip to a fundraiser in New Orleans, when Assistant U. S. Attorney Sally Yates asked, "Did you see Prewitt give the Mayor anything?"

Court recessed briefly after the defense objected to Clark's being allowed to say what Prewitt allegedly told him, but the judge allowed the testimony. After a break, Clark's testimony continued.

"Fred Prewitt told me he was going to put a roll in Mayor Campbell's hand big enough to choke a goat," said Clark, adding that Prewitt told him the amount would be $10,000. "The Mayor took it...he put it in his pocket. Fred and I snickered a little bit because Fred had said, 'Watch him walk all the way through the airport with his hands in his pocket.' And he did," said Clark. Campbell went gambling later that night, Clark said.

In a limousine on the way to an Atlanta fundraiser, Clark said he saw Prewitt give Campbell some money, which the Mayor also put in his pocket. Prewitt, said Clark, had told him the amount that time would be $4,000.

In 1993, Clark testified, he met a city contractor named George Greene, who owned Sable Communications, at Sable's offices.

"Mayor Campbell was chewing him out for not being a loyal supporter," said Clark. After that, he told the jury, Green's campaign contributions showed "a big difference" from the first to the second campaigns.

Greene, he said, paid to buy Campbell an electric barbeque grill, and wrote a $5,000 check to Campbell [pdf] for making a speech at Greene's house. Clark detailed for the jury copies of checks [pdf] Greene had written to Clark, ranging from $100 to $1,221. Sometimes the memo lines of the checks were blank; some had notations saying "meeting expense" or "software."

"Was this for software?" Yates asked. [view check (pdf)]

"No, ma'am," Clark replied.

Clark testified that yes, he had told Mayor Bill Campbell he was getting money from George Greene. He says once or twice, Campbell then directed him to get money from Greene "to fly someone in, or pay for a hotel room."

Then Clark got choked up again as he described how he would arrange hotel rooms for the Mayor to entertain women. Clark said at the Mayor's direction, he would reserve the rooms on his own credit card under his own name, then check in and pay for the rooms with cash Campbell had given him and take the keys to Campbell. He began weeping as he described how Campbell sometimes wanted him to buy champagne and other things for the room.

"I hate talking about it," Clark said, blowing his nose and crying. "I'm sorry. I never stopped loving him."

Clark then broke out in loud sobs and covered his face with tissues, prompting a male spectator to mutter angrily, "This is bull****," as he made his way down the bench and toward the courtroom door. "Let me get out of here."

Judge Richard Story sent the jurors out, then chastised the trial watchers.

"This court's business is open to the public, but you are here as our guests," Story said, telling the spectators if they could not watch the proceedings without making loud verbal commentary, they would not be allowed back into the courtroom. The jurors, he said, should not be distracted.

"You're disrupting this trial and disturbing these jurors, and I will not have it," Story declared.

Yates had Clark identify hotel receipts and then florist receipts and handwritten notes with messages he said the Mayor had given him [pdf] to write down when he had directed him on errands to buy flowers for a female friend. The notes were sometimes written on notepaper from Greene's business, Sable Communications.

Clark said on one occasion, Greene also sent $4,000 to Campbell for a planned gambling excursion to Mississippi. Clark says he drove the money to the Gulf Coast because he wasn't able to get to the Mayor before he'd flown out. The two stepped into a stall in the casino's bathroom, testified Clark, where he handed Campbell the cash.

'He told me not to mess with the Mayor's money'

Dewey Clark testified that strip club owner Michael Childs, seeking a liquor license for a new club, "Strawberries," began giving him money for Mayor Campbell. The two had talked at about the new club at a fundraiser. Childs gave Clark $5,000 at a midtown restaurant, Smokehouse.

"He told me not to mess with the Mayor's money," Clark said. "He told me to come back and he'd give me some money" for making the delivery. Clark testified that from August 1997 to September or October 1998, he picked up money from Childs in amounts ranging from "nothing smaller than $2,500 and they went up to $10,000." Clark then said he delivered the money to Campbell either in his office suite's bathroom, at the basement apartment and once outside the office of Ricky Rowe, a city contractor and friend of Campbell's.

Clark says that one day, Childs called him and said he was having trouble with his daughter's mother, and asked if Mayor Campbell might consider giving Pat Bell a job.

"He said he'd give him $10,000," Clark testified.

When Clark pitched the proposal to the Mayor, he was told, "Get the money" and after he did, Clark claims, Bell was hired "immediately" to some city job. Clark said the last time he picked up money from Childs for Campbell was in 1998, when Childs sent $10,000 to the Mayor for a gambling trip.

Tuesday, 31 January 2006