Former City of Atlanta Chief Financial Officer Jim Beard has pleaded guilty to federal program theft and obstructing an IRS audit. Beard served during Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration.
In 2020, Beard was indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple charges related to allegations of impropriety. These allegations stemmed from his tenure as the head of the city’s Department of Finance from 2011 to 2018.
Beard’s indictment in large part stemmed from an Atlanta City Hall shakeup for a pay to play scheme that caught a number of city officials in a widespread corruption investigation.
The longtime public servant, who during the Reed administration was only a step away from being mayor, used taxpayer’s money to “pay for personal travel expenses” for himself and his family,” and for “travel to conferences” in which he was reimbursed by the meeting host, and finally for travel that he claimed to the IRS was related to his “private consulting work.”
Taxpayers also paid $3,800 for hotel rooms for Beard’s daughter at the Lollapalooza Music Festival, along with $1,350 for rose petal turndown service at an Atlanta hotel for him and his wife and $2,641for two custom-built machine guns.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones is scheduled to sentence Beard on July 12. Beard could face as many as 13 years in prison but is likely to be sentenced to substantially less under federal guidelines.
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