ATLANTA — The government has moved to drop four wire fraud charges that former Atlanta official Mitzi Bickers was convicted on in her corruption case, citing "recent developments in the law."
Federal prosecutors have filed for the dropping of the charges and a re-sentencing for Bickers, who was convicted last year on numerous charges of money laundering, conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The government cites recent decisions that "concluded that an employee who lies to their employer and keeps their salary in the process cannot be prosecuted for wire fraud."
A filing states that "without conceding the sufficiency of the evidence for the four wire counts, the government intends to withdraw prosecution of the wire fraud counts" and asks for the case to be returned back to a federal court so those charges can be dismissed.
The filing also requests a "limited re-sentencing" for Bickers on the rest of the conviction "that considers the statutory maximums of the remaining convictions," noting that those statutory maximums are lower than the ones for wire fraud. It's unclear how much her sentence could possibly be reduced.
Requests by federal prosecutors were made on June 23 in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Appeals Court has not yet issued an order on the matter.
More on the Mitzi Bickers case
Bickers was indicted back in 2018, accused of using "her influence as a high-ranking City of Atlanta official and later as a connected political consultant to steer lucrative city contracts" to two contractors in exchange for bribes.
"The illicit arrangement netted over $2 million in bribes for Bickers and almost $17 million in city contracts," for the contractors she had allegedly conspired with, the U.S. Attorney's Office said at the time.
The contractors, Elvin Mitchell and Charles Richards pleaded guilty to paying the bribes and were sentenced to federal prison time.
Then-U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak also further alleged that after Mitchell began cooperating with the FBI, Bickers "played a role" in an incident where a man threw a concrete block through a window at Mitchell's home with a note saying: "Keep your mouth shut!"
Bickers was later indicted in a separate case involving bribes in Jackson, Mississippi.
She was one of several officials in the administration of former Mayor Kasim Reed, who ultimately was charged in a range of corruption cases.
Former city Chief Procurement Officer Adam Smith and Reed's Deputy Chief of Staff Katrina Taylor-Parks pleaded guilty to taking bribes and were given federal prison sentences.
Larry Scott, the City of Atlanta's former director of the Office of Contract Compliance, entered a guilty plea for wire fraud and filing false tax returns. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Reed's former press secretary Jenna Garland was convicted in a separate case in 2019 on misdemeanor counts of violating the Georgia Open Records Act.
Earlier this year, Jo Ann Macrina, the former head of the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, was sentenced earlier this year to four and a half years in prison for accepting bribes from a contractor - Lohrasb Jafari, who also pleaded guilty this year to bribing her and Smith.
Jim Beard, the city CFO, was also indicted on federal fraud charges in 2020. No trial has begun in his case.