Grand jury dispute continues

Accusations fly as report remains sealed. Dekalb DA says judge using the case as his ‘cause celebre.’

Accusations continued to be exchanged Tuesday in an acrimonious dispute over a sealed DeKalb County special purpose grand jury report.

DeKalb Assistant District Attorney Leonora Grant accused Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott of using the case as his “cause celebre” and shirking his duty to release the grand jurors who finished their work months ago.

Scott’s lawyer, Gary Freed, accused Grant of making “disingenuous” arguments and launching “an attack on the judiciary.”

The simmering dispute involves the special purpose grand jury that looked into the awarding and management of contracts by DeKalb’s Department of Watershed Management. Its report, completed in January, has spawned highly contentious litigation.

At the end of an almost three-hour court hearing Tuesday, the grand jury’s report still remained under seal and the grand jurors had yet to be relieved. The grand jurors do not have to report regularly for duty at the courthouse, but remain on call, lawyers said.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is hearing the case, said he would try to issue a ruling in a timely manner. He is now overseeing a lawsuit filed by the special purpose grand jurors in March, seeking a court order forcing Scott to forward their 81-page report to DeKalb’s 10 Superior Court judges.

During the hearing, McBurney said his initial take on Georgia’s law governing special purpose grand juries is that when the jurors finished with their work in January, Scott should have forwarded their report to the 10 judges. Once those judges review the report, they can then decide whether to release the grand jurors from service or require them to continue investigating the awarding of contracts by DeKalb’s watershed management agency.

“I don’t know why they’re still hanging around,” McBurney said of the grand jurors.

But McBurney then told Grant that an appeal she filed before the Georgia Supreme Court had put “mud in the waters.”

Separate from the grand jurors’ lawsuit, the DA’s Office is asking the high court to hear its appeal of Scott’s ruling to allow CEO Burrell Ellis and consultant Kevin Ross to read the grand jurors’ report before it is made public. Scott would then give the two men’s attorneys the chance to file further motions that seek to expunge any passages the lawyers believe are unfairly prejudicial to Ellis and Ross.

Complicating matters further, a separate DeKalb grand jury indicted Ellis last month on charges of theft, extortion and conspiracy. Ellis strongly disputes the allegations. Ross was not charged.

McBurney made note of all of these developments when pondering how he should decide Scott’s motion to dismiss the special purpose grand jurors’ lawsuit against him. McBurney noted that if the state Supreme Court agrees to hear the DA’s Office’s appeal, that court could decide whether Scott has the right to keep the grand jurors empaneled while he considers Ellis’ and Ross’ motions.

Grant argued that Scott had “hijacked” the special purpose grand jury process. “We’re trying to protect the integrity of the process,” she said.

“Judge Scott wants to have at that report,” Grant said, without elaborating. “... Everything Judge Scott wants to do can be done without (the grand jurors).”

Freed countered that it’s up to Scott, who was assigned to assist and supervise the special purpose grand jury investigation, to say when the jurors are done.

“Judge Scott has done nothing malicious,” Freed said. “He has done nothing wrong. He has ruled. ... If you don’t like it, you appeal it. You don’t sue him.”