A prominent member of Atlanta's black political elite was found guilty in federal court Saturday on charges of fraud, bribery and tax evasion, ending a three-week trial that rocked the city almost daily with revelations of official corruption.
Former city council member Ira Jackson was convicted on all but one of 131 counts by a federal jury three days after he took the stand to declare himself innocent of all charges.He has been at the center of a federal investigation into the awarding of business concessions at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport in the mid-1980s.
Jackson was accused of taking $80,000 in cash bribes and earning $1 million while secretly gaining control of a minority stake in the airport's gift shop company held by Mack Wilbourn, a co-defendant whom the jury acquitted on charges of mail fraud and witness tampering.
A third defendant in the trial, Dan Paradies, the majority owner of the airport gift shop business, was convicted on 83 counts of mail fraud and conspiring to bribe Jackson and other members of the city council. His lawyers say they will appeal the verdict.
Jackson and Paradies are expected to be sentenced in a few weeks.
The 12-member jury took just six hours to reach the verdicts despite the complexity of the trial, which involved more than 60,000 documents and testimony from over 60 witnesses.