Atlanta Funded Mayor's Husband's Trip To Super Bowl

ATLANTA, GA — City of Atlanta taxpayers wrongly paid more than $2,600 for Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' husband to fly to the Super Bowl in February.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV report that a city credit card was used to buy round trip, first-class tickets for Derek Bottoms, who is a vice president for Home Depot and not a city employee. Days later, Bottoms paid back $1,434.42 of the $2,610 cost and she says she is disputing the total cost with Delta after the couple switched from first-class to coach tickets for their return flight.

The couple was part of a 22-person delegation from Atlanta that attended the Super Bowl in advance of the city hosting next year's game at Mercedes Benz Stadium.

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The AJC and WSB obtained documents showing the expenses with a request filed under the Georgia Open Records Act.

Credit card statements for the city's former Chief Operating Officer Dan Gordon’s city-issued card show Derek Bottoms’ ticket was purchased Jan. 26, nine days before the game, the AJC reported. Mayor Bottoms' city-issued card was used to buy tickets on the same day and for the same price.

A spokeswoman for the mayor's office issued a statement to the AJC saying that the city worker's card was used in error and that Mayor Bottoms was not aware of it. The statement also said that Delta overcharged the city by about $1,000 for each of the tickets because the couple switched from first-class to coach on their return flight. They are trying to resolve the issue with the airline, the statement said.

"The transaction of this purchase was inadvertently made less than a month after Mayor Bottoms entered office, during the early days of the transition of the new Administration," the statement reads. "Immediately upon learning that a personal credit card had not been used, within 10 days of the trip, Mayor Bottoms issued a refund to the City."

Bottoms’ card also has a $626 charge from Murray’s Steakhouse in Minneapolis on Feb. 4 — the day of the Super Bowl, the AJC reported.

Photo by David Goldman/AP.