ATLANTA - The U.S. Department of Justice said a former supervisor for the DeKalb County Tax Commissioner's Office committed wire fraud while he was waiting to serve his prison sentence for separate bribery and blackmail charges.
Federal prosecutors said a grand jury charged 54-year-old Gerald D. Harris, who pleaded guilty to bribery and blackmail in 2020, with wire fraud for falsely claiming that he could register a stolen vehicle by bribing an employee in the DeKalb County Tax Commissioner's Office.
In 2020, Harris allegedly accepted more than $35,000 in bribes to unlawfully register or renew vehicle registrations. He tried to blackmail a person who paid him bribe money after he was fired, prosecutors said. Investigators said text messages and video showed Harris asked a person "how much" money he would receive for not cooperating with the FBI.
Harris pleaded guilty to bribery and blackmail in November 2020. He was granted six months to report to prison to serve a two-year sentence before the COVID-19 pandemic. The crimes related to Harris' new charges allegedly happened more in the period between his guilty plea and prison sentence.
But investigators said Harris lied to a person in March 2021 while waiting to go to prison, saying he ran the DeKalb County Tax Commissioner's Office and asked for between $1,200 and $1,500 to get tags for stolen vehicles and $4,000 for a commercial driver's license. Later that month, investigators said Harris lied about knowing a woman who could register the person's vehicle if they paid a $1,000 bribe.
A federal grand jury indicted Harris on three counts of wire fraud.
"Harris clearly had no remorse after his bribery and blackmail conviction, as he didn’t skip a beat in allegedly implementing a separate wire fraud scheme immediately after he was sentenced," FBI Atlanta Special Agent Keri Farley said. "Hopefully, this charge will send the message that the FBI takes fraud schemes very seriously and just because you have been convicted of one crime does not mean that you are immune from further charges."