Deputy CFO: ‘No behavior change’ seen

Each of the nine officers on Reed’s protection unit also had credit cards. Their charges show the less glamorous side of working for Reed. The officers routinely used the cards to pay for fast food and dry cleaning, usually for the mayor or his family. They also used them to pay for numerous one-night hotel stays in Atlanta.

A police union representative said the mayor had turned highly trained officers into errand boys, at a time when the understaffed department was reeling from attrition and morale issues.

Officer Craig Cooper swiped his card to book a flight to Nassau, Bahamas, for Reed’s young daughter, and used it to pay an airline charge for Reed’s wife on the same flight. Reed repaid the city contemporaneously for those charges — part of about $30,000 he repaid within a month or two of charges being made on the card.

City policy clearly states that the credit cards can only be used for official city business, and that personal purchases are prohibited.

After all that spending was exposed, federal prosecutors issued subpoenas asking for credit card documents for Reed, the officers in his protection unit and his entire staff.

Deputy Chief Financial Officer John Gaffney said in May that his department was powerless to stop inappropriate card use.

“We would flag charges and give him the opportunity to repay, and in many cases he did,” Gaffney said. “We do our best to change behavior, but that’s all we can do. There was no behavior change.”