THE ATLANTA CITY HALL BRIBERY STORY SO FAR

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged a second contractor with conspiring to pay off officials to win contracts at Atlanta City Hall.

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.

Richards paid the money so that his companies, C.P. Richards Construction Co., and C.P. Richards & Associates, would be given contracts, according to the federal charging document. Those payoffs are connected to $1 million in bribes paid over the same time frame by Elvin “E.R.” Mitchell, prosecutors say.

Mitchell pleaded guilty last month to his role in the scheme and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Richards is expected to plead guilty at a hearing scheduled Feb. 16 before U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones, and is also expected to cooperate with the government.

A federal subpoena in the Atlanta City Hall bribery investigation demanded the city’s law department produce contracts with Mitchell and his companies, along with a Lithonia company with which Mitchell’s company partnered as a minority contractor.

The Nov. 30 subpoena, obtained earlier this month by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News, asks for “all records and/ or communications” associated with Mitchell and four of his companies. It also requires the city to turn over identical documents related to Charles P. Richards Jr., and his companies.

Federal investigators also asked for records for work performed by those companies, “including but not limited to requests for proposal, contracts (including emergency contracts), amendments to contracts, and extensions to contracts.” The subpoena also requested records related to payments from the city to the two men’s companies.

On Jan. 25, Mitchell pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to commit bribery in order to obtain city contracts, as well as conspiring to launder money during the time of the scheme.

He confessed to giving at least $1 million to an unnamed person under the belief that a portion of the funds would be paid to one or more city officials “who exercised influence over the contracting process, “according to the criminal complaint against him.