City of Atlanta, Rampant Speculation Edition

There’s a 1.3 million-page document dump scheduled today at Atlanta City Hall, and a second contractor has been charged with paying city officials to win city contracts, aka, bribery.

“Charles P. Richards Jr., the owner of a Lithonia construction company, was led into federal court in handcuffs and leg irons to be arraigned in the widening federal probe of corruption in Atlanta’s government.  From 2010 to August 2015, Richards allegedly paid at least $185,000 in bribes to an unnamed person, believing some of the money would be given to city officials with influence over contract awards, prosecutors alleged.”

That money is connected to the nearly a million dollars in bribes E.R. Mitchell has already admitted he paid to unnamed city officials.

This is a federal investigation and as such, about as transparent a process as the selection of Popes. But generally, the bigger prizes in public corruption investigations are the public officials. So far we’ve seen charges filed only against businessmen, but people are starting to wonder how far this scandal is going to go. Lots of folks are walking on eggshells -but the conventional wisdom is that no elected officials are going to be caught up.

But you (and the Atlanta media) will soon have a million pages on which to base any speculation you’d like to offer up. Feel free to share it in the comments section below.