ATLANTA — The jury in the federal bribery case against former City of Atlanta employee Mitzi Bickers began deliberating shortly before 3 p.m. Tuesday.
The jury was sent home for the evening shortly before 6 p.m. and instructed to return Wednesday morning to resume deliberations.
Bickers is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery, money laundering, wire fraud, witness tampering, and falsifying tax returns.
The accusations are connected to a bribery scandal inside city hall during the Kasim Reed administration.
Bickers is accused of being involved with a "cash for city contracts" scheme with two construction company executives, and the allegations include that she received more than $2 million.
Several others charged in connection with the scandal have previously entered guilty pleas and have already been sentenced for their roles.
Bickers is the first to face a jury in court.
The two executives she is accused of working with are E.R. Mitchell and C.P. Richards.
In 2017, Mitchell pleaded guilty to having paid bribes totaling over $1 million across several years. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
C.P. Richards was sentenced to 27 months in prison, after admitting to paying more than $185.000 in bribes to someone in city hall.
Bickers isn't the only former city employee charged.
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 2 years in prison.
Katrina Taylor-Parks was the former deputy chief of staff at city hall during Kasim Reed's administration. She was sentenced to 21 months in prison. Prosecutors said she took money from a contractor to steer construction contracts toward him.
Adam Smith was the city's chief procurement officer. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison after he pled guilty and admitted he took $44,000 over the course of two years from an unnamed city contractor in exchange for influencing construction contracts.