Former Atlanta CFO Jim Beard pleads guilty to theft from federal government

ATLANTA - Jim Beard, the former chief financial officer for the City of Atlanta during Mayor Kasim Reed's administration, has pleaded guilty to charges of federal program theft and obstructing an IRS audit.

Beard had been indicted on multiple charges by a federal grand jury in 2020 stemming from allegations of impropriety while he ran the city's Department of Finance from 2011 to 2018.

According to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Beard misused City of Atlanta funds to pay for personal travel for himself, family, and travel companions, buy personal items, and to pay for travel he claimed to the IRS was for consulting work that he never disclosed to the city.

In 2018, the FOX 5 I-Team examined Beard's travel, finding a pattern. We found he paid for first-class style plane tickets like a $9,519 flight to Beijing, and a $14,732 business class flight and hotel to Amsterdam for two city employees. He also had lavish hotel expenses, like $10,277 for the Shangri-La in Paris.

MORE: FBI questioning family and friends of former Atlanta CFO Jim Beard

In the release, officials note that the credit card was used to pay for over $3,800 for hotel rooms in Chicago while Beard's step-daughter was attending the Lollapalooza Music Festival in both 2015 and 2016. Beard was not in Chicago at the time, officials said. 

Jim Beard

The credit card was also used so that Beard and his wife could stay in an Atlanta hotel room in Atlanta during a period when his work calendar was listed as "Do Not Schedule – PTO," officials also said.

MORE: Ethics complaint filed against Mayor Kasim Reed's CFO Jim Beard

Beard is also accused of ordering two custom-built machine guns worth over $2,600 which are illegal for anyone to own outside of law enforcement and military personnel. Officials said he falsely certified in a tax exemption that they were "for the exclusive use of the Atlanta Police Department."

Officials say that Beard submitted a personal income tax return to the IRS claiming that he had a personal business that had more than $33,500 in alleged losses in 2013. While being audited over those claims in 2015, Beard reportedly gave the IRS receipts that he had claimed were personal business expenses. Instead, investigators said the expenses had been paid to him while he was working for the city and using the credit card the city had given him.

Beard was the seventh city official who worked under Reed to be indicted in the ongoing FBI, IRS, and ATF investigation.

The former Atlanta official is set to be sentenced on July 12 and faces a maximum penalty of 13 years in prison.