Investor in business run by Mayor Kasim Reed's father later won millions in airport contracts

ATLANTA - A FOX 5 I-Team investigation found nineteen days after Mayor Reed was elected, his father, June, started a company called Capital Plastic Recyclers

June Reed raised as much as $250,000 from ten or more Atlanta investors according to two of his business associates. Reed set up his recycling shop in Cheraw, South Carolina, five hours north of Atlanta.

Who were all his investors? No one involved will say. But, our investigation found two of those investors had strong ties to the Atlanta Airport.

We've already told you about Lance Lyttle. He was - at the time - the assistant general manager at the Airport. Lyttle invested $50,000, according to a lawsuit he filed against June Reed. Lyttle accused Reed of fraud. The law suit shows while June Reed began paying the money back, the case was settled. Lyttle left the airport and now works at the Seattle-Tacoma International airport. He wouldn't comment. Nor would June Reed.

We found a second investor also had strong ties to the airport. Darrell Anderson is a limousine company owner and longtime family friend of the Reeds. Kasim Reed and Darrell Anderson, along with other investors, bought a $1.4 million piece of property off Cascade Road together back in 2007.

 In 2010 Anderson invested in June Reed's recycling company. A bank check, obtained by FOX 5 I-Team, shows Anderson's company A-National Limousine wrote a $32,000 check to cash in July of 2010. On the check it states the money was for: Capital Plastic Recyclers.

On the phone, I asked Anderson if he was an investor. He told me: "I was. That was a long time ago. I've been out of it for a long time."

One month after Anderson wrote that $32,000 check, in the summer of 2010, Atlanta airport officials gave Darrell Anderson control over the city's lucrative airport shuttle business. There was no competitive bid. The old shuttle company was out. Anderson was in. It was supposed to be temporary but ended up lasting four years.

Sara Henderson is the director of good government group Common Cause. "It really seems, very back room, old politics kind of things happening in this situation," says Henderson.

But there was another check. Shortly after Christmas, Anderson's company wrote a $35,000 to June Reed personally. On the check it states the money was an "advance CPR."

On the phone, Anderson told me the timing of the check written to June Reed had nothing to do with his new found city business. "Now you are going into left field about one thing that's got nothing to do with the other."

Sara Henderson found the check troubling. "It looks awful; especially when you have copies of check written directly to the father. Not to the business, to the father. This is clearly a conflict of interest," she told me.

Just months after the second check was written, in early 2011, Anderson was selected to take over his second contract at the airport. The city notified Darrell Anderson he was the winning bidder in a contract to manage cars, taxis, and limousines at the airport. The contract was later canceled and rebid, but Anderson won again.

The 5 year $6.6 million contract required Anderson to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. Anderson did not disclose his financial dealings with Mayor Reed's father. That contract was signed by Anderson and Mayor Reed.  

"I think the Mayor needs to come out and say, address this situation, and talk directly about these relationship and the money that has changed hands," says the director of Common Cause.

Darrell Anderson later wrote two more checks totaling $20,000 to June Reed. Written in 2012, and 2013 to June Reed personally, the checks indicate the money was for a "loan." The recycling company was still in business then.

The city also awarded Anderson his third airport contract just three months ago. A 3 year $10 million contract to provide Terminal to Terminal transportation at the airport. Mayor Reed's spokesperson in a statement said we are trying to smear the administration, public employees and small business people, and no one has broken any laws.

RELATED: Top Atlanta airport official invested in business run by Mayor Kasim Reed's father