Fresh Loaf

Ethics watchdog George Anderson, the Peach State’s most well-known rabble-rouser, has filed another lawsuit against Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford.

Among other accusations, Anderson alleges in the July 16 filing that Bedford, a colorful character who’s made headlines in the past, has misdirected fees commonly referred to as “contempt of court” fines.

The ethics watchdog alleges Bedford has solicited charitable contributions from courtroom spectators whose cell phones rang during trials. Anderson alleges Bedford recommends they contribute to the Brandon Foundation, a charity managed by his wife and daughters. Normally, fines for violations go to the Circuit Clerk’s office.

In February, Bedford said he’d never specified to which charities cell-phone scofflaws could contribute. He told the AJC in February that Anderson’s allegations damage the Brandon Foundation, which Bedford’s daughter says helps young cancer patients pay transportation costs for treatment.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because Anderson made similar allegations against Bedford last October with the Judicial Qualifications Commission. He says the commission still hasn’t sufficiently followed through on that complaint. CL covered the October filing, which was one of the more bizarre press conferences we’ve ever attended.

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Ethics complaints filed by a Sierra Club lobbyist for alleged improper influence-peddlin’ at the state Capitol for the controversial “private cities” bill require further investigation,  says Rick Thompson, executive director of the Georgia State Ethics Commission.

The complaints, filed by Gold Dome-fixture and eco-lobbyist Neill Herring, allege Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders, political consultant Derrick Dickey and two developer brothers from Dublin, Ga. lobbied without registering for “infrastructure development districts” — a mechanism that would’ve allowed developers to issue tax-free bonds to pay for sewers, roads and schools on their properties. The districts are legal in 17 other states. (You may have seen television advertisements for one, Florida’s “The Villages.”) Opponents of the concept call them “private cities” and say they are catalysts for sprawl. The legislation passed the General Assembly but failed a statewide referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot. (CL weighed in on the issue prior to the General Election.)

Thompson says commission staff needs to gather additional information to investigate Herring’s complaints.

The commission sifted through a laundry list of ethical complaints at its hearing yesterday against state representatives, lobbyists and Mayor Shirley Franklin. (According to the AJC’s Jim Galloway, the mayor’s agreed to pay a fine for “paperwork violations” and “failing to fully explain some of her campaign expenditures.”) Thompson says complaints filed by ethics watchdog George Anderson against Fulton County Superior Judge T. Jackson Bedford for not adequately completing campaign finance disclosures were dismissed by the commission because Bedford corrected the error.

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Dale Russell of Fox5 Atlanta has an investigative report airing tonight at 6 and 10 p.m. that looks into DOT Commissioner Gena Evans (nee Abraham) and explicit e-mails she sent to former boyfriends when she worked at different state agencies. If they’re the same ones reported late last week by WSB’s Richard Belcher, then they’re sexual in nature.

Evans has denied she did anything wrong and has understandably questioned who’s behind the examination of her past. The commissioner’s widely considered a reformer at the uber-powerful and long-beleaguered state agency. It’s been rumored, however, that her appointment angered many proponents of the status quo. Whatever the case, word is that some high-level folks are keeping an eye on this item. UPDATE: Galloway says the DOT Board will discuss the e-mails in a closed-door session on Nov. 13.

Says Russell:

It began with a computer disk with hundreds of e-mails written by DOT Commissioner Gena Evans. Written, before she was at the DOT, while working at other state agencies. Written on state computers, often during office hours. Many are personal. Some, very personal, even sexually explicit. They took us on a trail to personal relationships that some say conflicted with her professional responsibilities.

Click here to check out Russell’s preview of the report. (I was going to say “tease,” but that just seems too easy in this case.) Click here to view what aired on WSB.

The look into the e-mails — which were unearthed by Open Records enthusiast George Anderson  — has generated an interesting discussion on Peach Pundit and Live Apartment Fire. (Dale at LAF examines the newsroom decisions that led to the airing of the e-mails; Erick at PP says he thinks reporters are being led on a witch hunt by enemies of Evans.)

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OBJECTION George Anderson files his ethics complaint

Controversial Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford is the latest public official to get slapped with an ethics complaint by George Anderson, a government watchdog who’s always game for spelunking into the Open Records abyss.

On Friday, Anderson, the executive director of Ethics in Government Group, requested the State Ethics Commission and the Judicial Qualifications Commission investigate allegations against Bedford, the jurist who’s presided over such cases as the lawsuit about the Piedmont Park parking deck and the 2007 Terry Williams murder in Little Five Points. (My esteemed colleague Scott Henry touched upon the jurist’s Orwellian campaign slogan this morning. His opponent in the general election is Atlanta Magistrate Judge Keisha Lance Bottoms.)

Anderson alleges Bedford has misused “contempt of court” fines doled out to courtroom guests whose cell phones go off, speak out of turn, or conduct themselves in an unbecoming fashion. He wants the JQC to investigate whether the judge has misdirected fine payments to the Atlanta Santa Project, a charity Bedford founded and whose public service has been widely noted. Other allegations include not fully disclosing his campaign expenses and discussing pending cases outside the courtroom.

According to the minutes from a July 2008 NPU-F meeting that Bedford attended, he discussed the Terry Williams murder case. Members of the group who were interviewed by CL also said Bedford mentioned the case. (The judge was unavailable for comment on Friday.)

Now, here’s where this whole damn thing gets bizarre…

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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As you may have read on state politics websites and in news reports today, some of the documents from Speaker Glenn Richardson’s divorce have been unsealed after government gadfly George Anderson sued.

Just got my hands on ‘em AND…they’re pretty tame. No mentions of alleged trysts or cloakroom deals for natural-gas pipelines.

What they do show is that the case was a political hot potato in Paulding County. It went from judge to judge, with each one recusing himself from the case, until it ultimately returned to Paulding County Superior Court Judge James Osborne, who according to the documents was the “only remaining judge in the the Paulding County Circuit to which this case can be assigned.”  Osborne, who originally sealed the documents, is a former law partner of Richardson’s.

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Don’t look for this story in That Other Paper or on any of the television networks in town save for Fox5 — it ain’t there.

Three months ago, Dale Russell, the station’s investigative watchdog, broke a story about the state Environmental Protection Division’s Carol Couch giving developers planning a Wal-Mart in Forsyth County a green light to build on top of a stream.

In doing so, Couch essentially overrode her own agency’s previous judgment, and left many people wondering if the decision wasn’t part of a deeper political powerplay by Gold Dome bigwigs aimed at convincing then-DOT Board Chairman Mike Evans — who was developing the big-box store deal — to cast the deciding vote that placed Gena Abraham at the helm of the state transportation agency. Evans and Abraham later revealed they fell in love after she took the job. Evans resigned, Abraham stayed, c’est la vie, oobla di, oobla da, that’s amore.

Dedicated government gadfly George Anderson, of nonprofit one-man watchdog group Ethics in Government Group, filed complaints Friday about those scandals with the state inspector general against the EPD, DOT officials and Gov. Sonny Perdue. Anderson’s filed more than 300 such complaints and even questions the inspector general if she’ll act on them.

For a quick rundown of the details, view Russell’s report here.

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