Ex-Atlanta CFO who used city money for personal travel, machine guns to be sentenced

ATLANTA — A long-running Atlanta City Hall corruption probe is expected to draw to a close Tuesday when one of the highest-ranking officials ensnared in the investigation — former city Finance Chief Jim Beard — will learn his fate in federal court.

The accusations leveled against Beard were perhaps the most jarring in a saga that has already sent at least five former Atlanta officials and three city contractors to federal prison on bribery or other corruption-related charges. Beard, 60, becomes the latest, and likely the last, high-ranking official from former Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration to be sentenced.

Prosecutors alleged Beard charged luxury trips to a city credit card, double-dipped on travel reimbursements, cheated on his taxes and used the auspices of the city police department to buy a pair of custom-built machine guns otherwise unavailable to civilians.

Beard, who was Atlanta’s CFO from 2011 to 2018, pleaded guilty in April to diverting government funds and lying to the IRS. The agreement was part of a plea deal that will see six other counts, including possession of a machine gun, dropped.

His sentencing will conclude the last pending case in a sprawling probe that dates back more than a decade and included many tentacles, not all of them connected. The investigation started with allegations of pay-to-play contracting and included a 2015 incident in which a brick flew through a federal witness’ window with the message: “Keep your mouth shut!!!” The person who admitted to throwing the brick was a former city employee who later pleaded guilty to witness intimidation.

Beard’s admitted wrongdoing wasn’t related to contracting. According to prosecutors, Beard racked up some $74,000 in improper purchases, including a five-figure stay in a deluxe suite at Paris’s Shangri-La Hotel that boasted views of the Eiffel Tower. (He reimbursed the city for the hotel stay shortly after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested his spending records.) And they contend he used conference travel to pocket almost $17,000 by having organizers reimburse him personally for expenses he charged on the city’s card.

The people who signed off on Beard’s purchases were his own employees, prosecutors said in a filing Sunday. When one asked him for receipts to justify his spending, he refused to hand them over and pushed her to approve the charges, according to prosecutors.

In the months since Beard’s plea, the former finance leader has continued to assert that not everything he did was illegal. As recently as Friday, his attorneys maintained in a court filing that many of the trips authorities scrutinized were connected to city business, even if his family came with him.

In his attorneys’ telling, Beard’s family accompanying him was an effort to “squeeze in some personal time” amid a busy work schedule.

Even so, Beard, who made more than $260,000 a year in his city job, admitted in April to using his city credit card to book a room at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Chicago for his stepdaughter to attend the music festival Lollapalooza, even though he didn’t make the trip, according to his plea agreement. He acknowledged using the card to buy a plane ticket to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and pocketing a travel reimbursement check intended for the city of Atlanta’s coffers. He also admitted having the city cut a $2,641.90 check to buy the machine guns that he kept in his possession.

Beard faces a prison term of up to 13 years, but he is unlikely to receive such a stiff sentence. Federal sentencing guidelines only recommend a sentence of up to three years and five months, according to the government’s pre-sentencing investigation.

Beard’s defense attorneys asked that he avoid federal lockup altogether. They contend a combination of probation, community service and home confinement would be punishment enough. His parents wrote to the federal judge to seek leniency, asking their son be allowed to pursue his new vocation as a licensed drone pilot.

The decision on Beard’s sentencing ultimately falls to U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who will hear arguments starting at 2:30 p.m. in Atlanta’s federal courthouse.