WSB's Veronica Waters reports Atlanta attorney Cary Ichter, whose firm Meadows, Ichter and Trigg represented the Campbell campaign in 1997, testified that after the election their firm was owed almost $40,000 in legal fees. As campaign treasurer Steve Labovitz and Meadows, Ichter exchanged a series of letters, Labovitz was informed that the firm's work was not pro bono. Labovitz then told Ichter that the campaign was in the red and could not afford to pay.

During the same time period, Labovitz sent a letter to a pair of campaign officials, telling them that the campaign should hold fundraisers to replenish campaign funds and pay off the mounting debt. They would aim for $150,000, said Labovitz' letter, which would likely give them enough to donate to charities after retiring the outstanding debts.

Ichter said the firm eventually settled for a payment of $10,000, [pdf] which he testified he would not have done if he had known the campaign had more money.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Fred Orr questioned Ichter about an exchange of e-mails the two shared in recent days. Orr and Ichter have known each other for years. Ichter inquired about how the trial was going, and Orr responded that it was "very tiring, by far my longest" in recent years, and that he expected the case to last for several weeks yet.

"I wish you personal luck, but I hope Campbell fries," was Ichter's response, which he admitted on the stand.

Ichter explained on re-direct that he meant the answer "as a citizen of the city and an officer of the court" and said he'd been keeping up with the trial by reading the newspaper.

"I hope Mr. Campbell is convicted because that is the right outcome," Ichter testified.

Orr asked Ichter if, as an officer of the court, he also agreed that Campbell is innocent until proven guilty based on the evidence presented at trial, and not what is published in the newspapers. Ichter said he did agree. He was excused and the court took a brief recess.

Defense attorney Jerry Froelich, outside the jury's presence, called Ichter's testimony prejudicial and told the judge the e-mail was clear evidence of bias.

Froelich stormed out into the hallway where Ichter was waiting on the elevator to go downstairs.

"You shouldn't have opened that door," Ichter said.

"We'll take it up later, with the Bar," Froelich said before walking back into the courtroom. "He was a client of yours."

Testimony Spotlights Debts, Deposits, and Trips

IRS Agent Deborah Fitzpatrick testified she had analyzed the Campbell campaign's debts and bank balances using records dating back to the year after the re-election campaign. She testified that the campaign held successful fundraisers to retire its debt, and that by mid-1998, the campaign had enough money to pay off all its outstanding debt [pdf] and still have cash in the bank. The records seemed to indicate that bills didn't stop coming into the campaign until the early spring of 2000, but that the fundraisers had put enough money into the campaign's four bank accounts to pay off all of them.

A limousine service, the law firm, and a printing company were left holding outstanding balances of over $50,000, testified Fitzpatrick, even though the campaign had more than twice that in the bank. The limo company, which was owed $2,200, made a contribution to the Campbell campaign for $2,000 and wrote off the remaining $200 debt. The law firm wrote off the remaining $29,000 it was owed; and the poster company's $23,000 debt was carried into March of 2000 and paid down to $5,000 before the business wrote off the rest.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick told the jury, thousands of dollars in funds raised with the intention of "retiring the debt" were spent on credit card bills, sporting event tickets, travel expenses, and cell phone bills.

FBI Agent Mile Brosas summarized Mayor Bill Campbell's travel from 1995-2001 and testified Campbell had 379 trips totaling 861 days out of town. [pdf] Dozens of the trips, he said, indicated no charges to any of Campbell's credit cards for hotels or meals.

But defense attorney Billy Martin had Brosas acknowledge on cross-examination that he had not made any calls to investigate how much of those "blank" expenses were comped by Campbell's hosts—agencies, conferences, or hotels which had invited the Mayor to appear or be a guest. The FBI had also not done a breakout of whether some of the travels were to his parents' or in-laws' homes in North Carolina and Washington, DC. Nearly a third of the trips were to DC, where Martin says Campbell's in-laws lived.

Brosas also said he had not taken into account what Martin said was one of the former Mayor's favorite places to eat—McDonald's—for a "real cheap" meal.

The Government, however, hopes to show that Campbell was using city contractors' cash to pay his way for everything from airplane tickets to gambling chips at casinos.

Wednesday's expected testimony of Dan DeBardelaben was pushed back to Thursday. He and former city contractor Samuel Barber are expected to detail alleged bribes passed to Campbell in order to win favorable consideration for a Y2K contract with Atlanta. Prosecutors say they still believe they can rest their case by Friday.

Thursday, 23 February 2006