Judge Scott McAfee said that while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis kept no records of the payments she says she made to her lead prosecutor to reimburse him for vacation travel the two took together, her claim that she paid him back in cash “was not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.”
“Such a reimbursement practice may be unusual and the lack of any documentary corroboration understandably concerning. Yet the testimony withstood direct contradiction, was corroborated by other evidence,” McAfee said.
Willis, the judge noted, provided no ledger of her alleged payments to lead prosecutor Nathan Wade “and the District Attorney may well have received a net benefit of several hundred dollars.”
Despite this, McAfee said “the Defendants have not presented sufficient evidence indicating that the expenses were not ‘roughly divided evenly.’”
Some background: Throughout her testimony, Willis said she paid Wade cash for trips they took together, saying her use of cash explained why there is no paper trail documenting reciprocal payments to Wade.
During her testimony, Willis was peppered with questions about her claim that she reimbursed Wade in cash for trips to Aruba, the Bahamas and Belize, as well as for wine tastings, chocolates and caviar in Napa Valley.
Wade also testified that Willis paid cash for excursions on at least one vacation and paid him back for plane flights and other travel. “She paid for the excursions so the expenses sort of balanced out,” he said.
