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Soon after DeKalb County paid for repairs at Commissioner Lee May’s

home, the man who arranged the work says he was tapped to help May

with his personal financial troubles.

May was swimming in debt and in the midst of bankruptcy. Doug Cotter

said the County Commission’s chief of staff, Morris Williams, asked him

for a favor. Could he help a commissioner out?

So Cotter says he handed over $4,000 to Williams.

Five months later, Cotter, working on behalf of Water Removal Services,

$4K payment at issue in latest DeKalb probePosted: 6:45 p.m. Friday, April 24, 2015

By Johnny Edwards - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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$4K payment at issue in latest DeKalb probe | www.myajc.com http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/4k-payment-at...

1 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

In March, DeKalb County Interim CEO Lee May(right) named former Georgia Attorney GeneralMike Bowers a special investigator to root ... ReadMore

Morris Williams, former chief of staff to the DeKalbCounty Commission and former deputy chiefoperating officer over public works and ... ReadMore

won a $300,000

contract to clean up

floods and sewage

back-flows in

residences and

businesses throughout

the county. Cotter

parted ways with the

company and took the

contract with him.

Those findings, from an

investigation by The

Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News, raise more

questions about coziness among top DeKalb officials and those vying

for county work, and whether those relationships may have crossed

into illegal dealings.

May, now DeKalb’s

interim CEO, says he

knew nothing about the

$4,000.

“I have never received

any kind of

reimbursement, no

money from Water

Removal Services,

never,” May said. “All

my bank accounts,

nothing, you will not see anything that I have done. I have never

participated in any kickbacks, any kind of pay to play, never.”

Williams wouldn’t say much. Other players in the transactions claim

fuzzy memories and have conflicting accounts of how and why the

payment was made.

Records obtained by the AJC and Channel 2 show that DeKalb paid

Alpharetta-based Water Removal Services $6,500 to fix May’s floors

after a raw sewage back-flow, even though the company owner said he

had agreed to do the work at cost, or about $2,500.

“Real quick after that,” Cotter told the AJC and Channel 2, “Mr. Williams

contacted me and kind of went through Mr. May’s financial difficulties,

and said, ‘Doug, is there any way you can help him out?’”

The company then issued a $4,000 check to May.

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2 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

Homebuilder Doug Cotter, who arranged a $6,500home repair job for Lee May four years ago, isshown during an interview ... Read More

Lee May’s former home, at 740 Kilkenny Circle, inLithonia, where Water Removal Services did$6,500 in repair work. The county ... Read More

The den of Lee May’s former home, at 740Kilkenny Circle in Lithonia, is soiled with rawsewage in this 2010 ... Read More

That check, which

Cotter says he cashed,

bears an apparently

forged “Lee May”

endorsement. It’s

become the heart of the

latest federal

investigation into

DeKalb County

corruption, the AJC and

Channel 2 learned.

Where the trail stops

The AJC and Channel 2

have been looking into

May’s county-paid

home repair work over

the last year and spent

the past month piecing

together transaction

details.

While following the

money trail, reporters

confirmed that the FBI

also has been probing

why the check was

issued and whether

there is a connection to

the subsequent

contract. Cotter, the

former owner of Water

Removal Services and

the man who later

bought the company all

said they have been

interviewed by an

agent.

The trail leads to the

door of Williams, who

abruptly retired last

month as the FBI was

asking questions. He

had worked 17 years

with the county, and in

KENT D. JOHNSON

JOSH WADE / WSB-TV


3 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

FBI probe involves repairs to DeKalbofficial’s home

Check to Lee May

May's letter to law enforcement

Water Removal Services payment

DeKalb commissioners approve contractaward

Official’s sudden exit catches DeKalb bysurprise

Culture of corruption reigns in DeKalb, saysgrand jury

2013 May had named him to be deputy chief operating officer over

public works and infrastructure, overseeing such projects as the $1.35

billion water-sewer overhaul.

Williams left without giving two weeks’ notice or any explanation.

Cotter said he has been

close friends with

Williams for the past 15

years.

In June 2011, Cotter said

he met Williams for coffee and gave him the $4,000 check. A few days

later, he said, Williams handed it back — already endorsed on the back.

“Morris asked me, ‘Doug, is there any way you can cash this for Lee?’ I

said sure.”

So he took it to a liquor store in Dawsonville that his family owns,

cashed it, and met Williams at a McDonald’s in Decatur to hand over the

money. Cotter said he didn’t receive a cut.

He also said he didn’t

question why Williams

— or May — couldn’t just

cash it.

“When I gave the

money to Morris, I was hoping it was going to the intended use, to help

Lee and his family,” Cotter said. “I just trusted somebody. If I had it to do

over again, I would certainly have done it differently.”

Contacted by phone, Williams confirmed he is friends with Cotter, but

in the brief conversation disputed Cotter’s account.

“That did not happen that way,” Williams said. “I did not receive that

amount of money from him, for Lee, from Water Removal Services.”

Williams refused to clarify whether he received any money or whether

he gave funds to the commissioner.

May said the answer to that is an emphatic no, that he never received a

dollar of it. After reporters showed him a front-and-back copy of the

check, he contacted the FBI.

“It’s absolutely not my signature,” May said. “My assumption is, that’s

some kind of federal offense.”

The FBI declined comment.


4 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

May recently hired private investigators to root out cronyism and dirty

government in the county, and he said he doesn’t want the sewer affair

tarnishing his reputation.

“I have three small children. I have a wonderful wife,” May said. “I would

never jeopardize anything for something as silly, and illegal, as this.”

Leader under scrutiny

Through spokesman Burke Brennan, May declined a request by the AJC

and Channel 2 to make his 2011 bank records available. Brennan did

provide a letter May sent to the FBI, the GBI, the District Attorney’s

Office and the private investigators, saying he and others “may be the

victims of a crime.”

“It appears to me that this is a fraud that is being perpetuated under my

name,” May’s letter says.

If Cotter wanted to help May, though, it wouldn’t have been for a

stranger. Cotter, a major player in the Atlanta residential real estate

business before the recession, said he once organized a campaign

fundraiser for May.

May said he knew Cotter as the former president of the Greater Atlanta

Home Builders Association and as a developer who’d been before the

commission over zonings.

Cotter had also been caught up in another DeKalb controversy.

In 2008, he was involved in a consortium asking the county to buy 92

acres of undeveloped land in May’s south DeKalb district for $6.1

million. The administration of then-CEO Vernon Jones negotiated the

deal, saying it would preserve green space. May was among

commissioners supporting the purchase.

But CEO-elect Burrell Ellis questioned the property’s appraisal, which

was more than three times what the owner had paid per acre two years

previously. And after the AJC reported that the landowner and those

connected to the consortium had given more than $30,000 to the

campaigns of all seven county commissioners and to the U.S. Senate

campaign of Jones, public criticism grew intense.

The commission passed on the deal.

Cotter’s home-building business suffered in the real estate collapse, and

by 2010, he was working in the flood-repair business, sharing office

space with John Meyer, who then owned Water Removal Services.


5 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

Around this time, Cotter crossed paths again with May, who had

financial problems of his own.

May had filed for bankruptcy in 2007, trying to adjust debts as he was

financially reeling from a movie theater business, then in April 2011

instead sought bankruptcy liquidation. Documents he filed with the

court at that time say he had only $1,200 in a checking account.

Amid that, in late 2010 when raw sewage bubbled out of May’s

downstairs commode and seeped into a living room, a hallway and his

garage, May recalls phoning a list of county higher-ups, seeking help.

He said he made calls to the former Watershed Management director

and the former chief operating officer, among others. He said he also

called Williams. Water department crews arrived and unclogged the

sewer line, and the county’s emergency contractor, ServPro, cleaned up

the raw sewage.

That still left May with damaged floors and baseboards in his living

room and a downstairs bathroom.

Help with a home disaster

How May’s floors got fixed typified the culture festering in DeKalb

government for years.

County employees disregarded their own processes to accommodate

the powerful. Companies, particularly those gunning for the county’s

favor, went out of their way to please influential officials. No one looked

too closely if strings were pulled.

That environment allowed former Commissioner Elaine Boyer for

years to charge personal expenses to taxpayers and to set up a kickback

scheme the county itself never detected. It led to allegations that now

suspended-CEO Ellis shook down vendors for campaign donations.

It’s why a special grand jury investigation found a $2.2-million-a-year

tree-trimming contract awarded to a fake company owned by a Cartoon

Network employee who didn’t even own a chainsaw. It’s why when a

police detective began investigating allegations of fraud in the water

department, her superiors shut her down.

In May’s case, the chain of events isn’t clear because of conflicting

accounts.

Meyer said he recalls Cotter asking if his company could do a repair job

at May’s home in Lithonia. At the time, Meyer said, he didn’t know who

May was, but he offered to charge him only for materials, or about


6 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

$2,500.

“I said, ‘Alright, well, no problem,’” Meyer said. “I said, ‘Well, how do you

know this guy?’

“He goes, ‘Trust me, he’s a good friend of mine. He’s going to be a very

powerful official one day.’”

Because it was a relatively small job for the company, Meyer said he

paid little attention.

Cotter has a different account. He said he doesn’t recall saying that May

would be powerful someday.

The exact business relationship between Meyer and Cotter isn’t clear.

Meyer said Cotter wasn’t a partner nor associate, just another

businessman he referred jobs to. Yet Cotter signed county bid

documents identifying himself as either Water Removal Services’

president or manager.

Water Removal Services’ invoice shows that three weeks after the

sewage back-flow, the company finished drying out, cleaning and

disinfecting May’s house. Then the crew ripped out, replaced and

repainted May’s damaged baseboards, shoe molding and wall

coverings.

Then months passed, Meyer said, without the company getting paid,

and he started questioning Cotter about why. Meyer’s wife and

operations manager, Gloria, said job notes she found show the

company began billing May and leaving him voice messages four

months after the work was finished, but got no response.

On June 16, a former Water Removal Services employee sent an invoice

for the full amount of repairs, $6,495, to then-Purchasing Director

Kelvin Walton, emails obtained by the AJC and Channel 2 show. Cotter

said that is what Williams told him to do.

Meyer said he didn’t know the company had got paid by the county.

“I didn’t tell anybody to bill DeKalb County,” Meyer said. “How that

other $6,000 showed up — I’ll put my hand on the Bible, a lie detector,

anything you want — I have no idea.”

Favored treatment

On the county’s end, May didn’t have to ask for special treatment.

Routinely, commissioners got it anyway.


7 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

Rather than having to deal with the bureaucratic red tape other DeKalb

residents face, May wasn’t told to submit a claim or estimates, and the

county paid 100 percent of his repair costs, issuing a check the day after

receiving the invoice.

Walton said he fast-tracked the payment because it involved a sitting

commissioner.

May acknowledges that he received special treatment that wasn’t

appropriate, though he says he didn’t realize it at the time. “I should

have gone through the same process anyone else in that situation

would have had to go through,” he said.

If the company doing the work agreed to a discount because of who

May was, that would be a different type of special treatment. Meyer said

he didn’t consider it a favor for May, but for Cotter.

Gloria Meyer said the $4,000 check was probably a refund for the labor

costs that her husband had agreed not to charge, though she doesn’t

recall specifically. She said she probably gave it to Cotter and signed her

husband’s name on it.

If it was a reimbursement, then the money should have gone back to

DeKalb. But open records requests turned up no such payments, and a

county spokesman said he could not locate any records of a refund.

Cotter said the money was never intended as a refund, but as help for a

friend. He said he had Meyer’s blessing to send the money to May. He

didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time.

“If I’d have had to do it over again,” he said, “I would have just taken the

money out of my pocket and given it to Lee.”

When he cashed the check, Cotter said he assumed the signature on the

back was May’s.

Meyer provided the AJC and Channel 2 with a copy of the check, which

is dated June 23 and cleared on June 27, 2011.

On the endorsement line on the back, the jagged “Lee May” signature

differs from May’s more rounded signature on county documents.

Contract won, then terminatedth

Days after the check was cashed, the county put out an invitation to bid

on its emergency sewer cleanup contract. In September, Cotter

submitted a bid on behalf of Water Removal Services. County staff


8 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

evaluated bids and recommended the winner. Commission meeting

records say Cotter underbid four other companies to win the job.

May made the motion to award the contract in December 2011. May’s

spokesman said in an email that commissioners can’t influence the bid

process, only vote for or against staff recommendations.

Walton said no one tampered with the bid. And Cotter said that while

Williams or May might have told him about the bid opportunity, they

pulled no strings for him.

“Neither Morris Williams or Lee May had anything they could do with

the contract,” Cotter said. “It’s not a thing where you get to pick the

prettiest one at the dance. It’s a low-bid process.”

Around that time, Meyer said that he and Cotter had a bitter falling out.

Meyer said he suspected Cotter of trying to take over his company and

that they argued over payments.

Cotter incorporated a new company, Haw Creek Restoration, and

Meyer signed documents assigning him the contract rights as part of a

settlement of their financial dispute. He said he also had suspicions

about Cotter’s work for May, so he wanted no part of working for

DeKalb.

“I’m not a dumb person. I knew enough. Doug was doing him a favor,”

Meyer said. “I knew there was something going on, but I don’t ask,

because that’s his business.”

Walton and the current purchasing director said such transferring of

contracts is allowable, so long as the county consents.

After receiving two contract extensions and earning more than

$300,000 from the county from 2012 to early 2014, Haw Creek

terminated its contract in April 2014. The company has since gone out

of business.

“We were losing money,” Cotter said. “It was a bad business decision.”

Cotter said he never lost touch with Williams, who last called him in

March.

“He said, ‘I’m retiring. Doug, I can’t talk about it right now. Let’s talk at

the end of the week,’” Cotter said. “He said, ‘I’m going to take some time

off. I’ll call you and we’ll get together.’”

That was the last he heard.


9 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

Digging deep

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began looking into the repair work at

Lee May’s home last year based on a tip and then zeroed in on the issue

this spring after receiving more information. The AJC and Channel 2

Action News used the Georgia Open Records Act to trace payment

records and obtained other key documents from the company that did

the work. You can examine many of those documents for yourself;

they’re posted on the MyAJC website. In addition to the sources named

in the story, reporters also talked with other current and former county

officials, former employees of the companies involved and other

DeKalb residents. If you have tips about government waste or

malfeasance, email the reporter, [email protected].

Comment(s) 1-2 of 2

anothercomment Report

These Dekalb "politicians" sure can be bought cheap.

3:39 a.m. Apr. 25, 2015

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Post a CommentAll Comments (2)


10 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM

BSFilter247 Report

This is proof that Lee May is a phony. A brilliant phony though. What a shame for the good people of DeKalbCounty.

12:15 a.m. Apr. 26, 2015

Comment(s) 1-2 of 2

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12 of 12 4/26/15, 4:38 PM