ATLANTA -- A local power player who has become the key figure in the Atlanta City Hall bribery scandal is set for a pretrial conference Monday morning.
Mitzi Bickers, former city of Atlanta employee and well-known Atlanta preacher, is accused of accepting around $1 million in bribe money in exchange for steering construction contracts with the city of Atlanta.
She’s charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery; three counts of money laundering; three counts of wire fraud; one count of witness tampering; and one count of filing false tax returns.
She pled not guilty in April and is free on bond.
Prosecutors allege Bickers bought a plethora of luxury items with her bribe money including jet skis, a $700,000+ lake-front home, a $40,000+ Denali luxury SUV, and vacations to Aruba and on Carnival cruise lines.
Bickers was a highly sought-after political consultant who was instrumental in getting former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed elected. After his election, he appointed her human services director for the city.
The bribery scandal began almost two years ago after the Justice Department subpoenaed 1.4 million documents from the City of Atlanta. So far, only four people have been sent to jail for the bribery scandal.
