ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta’s former chief financial officer pleaded guilty Monday to stealing money from the city for personal travel and guns and trying to cheat the federal government on his income taxes.
Jim Beard, 60, pleaded guilty to one count of theft from federal programs and one count of fiscal obstruction in federal court in Atlanta.
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U.S. District Judge Steve Jones is scheduled to sentence Beard on July 12. Beard could face up to 13 years in prison, but is likely to be sentenced to a substantially lesser sentence under federal guidelines.
Atlanta’s former chief financial officer pleaded guilty to stealing city money for personal travel and weapons and attempting to cheat the federal government on his income taxes.
Beard served as the city’s chief financial officer under Mayor Kasim Reed, managing Atlanta’s financial resources from 2011 to 2018. Beard is the 10th person convicted in an anti-corruption investigation in Reed’s administration. Most of the others were convicted on charges of giving or accepting bribes for city contracts. Reed himself has never been charged.
During his tenure, Beard used city money to pay for personal trips and illegally purchase two machine guns, he admitted in his plea agreement.
Federal prosecutors said Beard stole tens of thousands of dollars from the city, although the plea agreement described about $5,500 in thefts.
That includes spending more than $1,200 for his stepdaughter to spend three nights in a Chicago hotel room during a music festival in August 2015. Beard said he was there to discuss interest rates on the city’s debt.
Beard also admitted to purchasing two custom-made machine guns from Georgia manufacturer Daniel Defense in 2015, paying $2,641.90 with a city check. Beard had claimed the guns were for the Atlanta Police Department (it is generally illegal for civilians to own machine guns in the United States), but he kept them until he dropped them off in 2017 at the police department office that oversaw police protection. mayor.
He also spent $648 on airfare to New Orleans to attend the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in April 2016, and then deducted the same expense from his income taxes by telling the IRS it was for his personal consulting business. . Beard also pulled double duty by charging the city nearly $1,000 in travel expenses to a meeting in New York with a bond regulatory agency and then getting the same agency to reimburse him for $1,276.52.
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Beard also claimed $33,000 in losses from his consulting business on his 2013 income tax return, and the IRS ultimately allowed him to deduct $12,000 in business travel expenses he never spent.
According to the statement, Beard renounces his gun rights and agrees to repay money to various entities, including the city of Atlanta.
