The heads of the DeKalb Recorders Court have been subpoenaed by the grand jury investigating the disappearance of millions of dollars from the court.

The summons, issued Monday, seeks court financial documents from Recorder’s Court Chief Judge Joy Walker and Chief Clerk Joyce Head.

District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming confirmed Wednesday that the grand jury also issued subpoenas Tuesday to the DeKalb Sheriff’s Office and the county’s Finance Department in its ever-widening civil probe into the county’s cash management.

At a press conference on Tuesday, DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis said that DeKalb Public Safety Director William Miller would oversee an audit of the Recorders Court in an attempt to recoup those funds. On Wednesday he said Miller would also be responsible for supervising the court’s employees and the revenue collection process.

“We don’t know how much of the missing funds can be recouped but we intend to try to collect,” he said. “We do know in this difficult economic environment with declining revenue, it is important that we look at as many revenue sources as possible before we raise taxes.”

Walker said Wednesday she is happy to comply with the subpoenas, which were sent to her as the department’s head.

“We intend to cooperate and we are gathering the documents,” she said. “It wasn’t a personal subpoena. I was subpoenaed as head of the department and the clerk, as keeper of the record.”

She said she is working to provide the documents by the July 9 deadline set by the grand jury.

“This is good oversight,” she said of the probe. “We did have some bad apples in the Recorders Court and we applaud the DA for dealing with them.”

In a follow-up statement Wednesday, Ellis said he was taking immediate steps to address “serious systemic problems with the operational processes” of the Recorders Court in the wake of the subpoena.

“It is important that county government take immediate action to begin the process of re-establishing the DeKalb County Recorders Court’s judicial and financial integrity and its ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the county and its citizens,” Ellis said.

He said that he will ask the National Center for State Courts to conduct a financial audit to analyze the court’s policies and procedures and that the county will hire a consultant on a short-term emergency procurement basis to assist in the collection of outstanding revenue from defendants who have failed to appear before the court.

The developments come in the wake of last week’s indictment of four low-level court employees, and seven other people who didn’t work for the court, for fixing 30 to 40 tickets affecting 171 criminal charges ranging from making false statements to theft of public documents. They face up to 40 years in prison.

Keyes Fleming said they are unable to put a dollar amount on the scammed tickets.

In two separate indictments announced June 25 – one for eight people, and another for three individuals – Keyes Fleming said that former Recorders Court deputy clerks Charlene Nettles Johnson of Conyers, Stephan Bruce Roberts of Lithonia, and Adrian “Tony” Andrews of Clarkston are accused of dismissing, closing out or destroying traffic citations for money or retail vouchers at a Stone Mountain store, with the help of five outside accomplices.

The indictment named the accomplices as Sonia Williams of Stone Mountain, Reshonda Counts of Riverdale, Marlene Findley of Stone Mountain, Tameka Shrone Johnson of Ellenwood, and Andrea Ariean Sinclair of Loganville.

‘Extensive breakdown’

In a separate unrelated indictment, former Recorders Court employee Vanessa Adel Burks of Atlanta, former DeKalb probations office employee Tanzey Swankey of Decatur, and Brenda Singleton of Decatur were named in individual ticket-fixing indictments.

The request for documents also follows a December 2008 study by Norcross-based e2 Assure, which detailed the loss of millions of dollars in ticket collections at the court.

The widening probe comes at a time when the cash-strapped county is struggling to balance its budget and keep county services intact.

The 31-page 2008 performance review found that since 2000, Recorders Court had failed to collect up to $20 million in funds from traffic and code violation citations because the court’s management allowed court operations to erode into “an environment of organized chaos.”

Ellis said that at least for the past nine years, the court has not collected funds either by people not coming to court to pay violations or by court employees not recording the payment properly.

“There seems to be an extensive breakdown in the way of the recording and management, and that is what we expect to find out through conducting the audit,” he said.

The review identified a decline in Recorders Court performance and efficiency from an erosion and breakdown in information systems, policies, procedures, workflow processes and workforce standards.

Ellis said Walker and Head are responsible for ensuring that the court’s collection of citation funds runs smoothly and that the search for more information is related to people failing to appear in court, the court’s lack of follow-up and the court’s failure to collect money.

“It’s clear to me that was a responsibility of the chief clerk by statute and the chief judge was not entirely clear in terms of her responsibility to the administration of these things,” he said. “If you look at the report, it is very clear that there needs to be someone that has the ultimate responsibility to make sure that management happens in an appropriate way moving forward.”

The subpoena calls for Walker and Head to make available all papers, books, records and accounts that relate to court accounting and recording of money between January 2007 and June 2009.

Sheriff Thomas Brown said Wednesday morning that he had not yet received the subpoena. He said he understood from the district attorney that the grand jury would be looking at how his office manages the cash fund process for cash bonds for State, Superior and Recorders Court.

Mike Bell, the county’s finance director, said he got the subpoena Wednesday for “data and information” that he may or may not have in his department. He too has a July 9 deadline from the grand jury.

Indictments cover 4 years

The 37-page ticket-fixing indictments covered everything from speeding and seat belt violations, to bribery and conspiracy.

Keyes Fleming said the Recorders Court employees charged people half the amount of the citation and pocketed the cash, or got credits at two Stone Mountain businesses: Glitzy Dazzle, a clothing store in the Village of Stone Mountain, and Fidel’s Salon on Memorial Drive. Both businesses were used as referral points, and 25 percent finder’s fees were paid.

In some cases, Keyes Fleming said the people involved were given store credits at both businesses.

The indictment said Findley and Counts, who work at Fidel’s Salon, were friends of deputy clerk Johnson. The indictments said that customers used Glitzy Dazzle, owned by Williams, as a “drop box” for their tickets to be fixed by the three court employees. It said Williams also gave Johnson store credit for fixing her tickets and the tickets of those referred through her business.

The indictments cover the period from July 1, 2004, to Jan. 31, 2008. Keyes Fleming said they found fixed tickets dating back to 2000, but the five-year statute of limitations for prosecution had expired. She said the deputy clerks “actually stole from the county, or prevented the county from collecting fees.”

Keyes Fleming said Burks, Sankie and Singleton were not involved in the bigger scam, but are named independently in individual ticket-fixing indictments.

Keyes Fleming said the 11 indicted individuals were all arrested at some point and have bonded out of jail.