<p>The former mayor of Atlanta, who presided over the city during its most prosperous period in recent history, including the 1996 Summer Olympics, is returning to defend himself and his administration in a federal corruption trial.</p><p>Bill Campbell is accused of accepting more than $160,000 in illegal campaign contributions, cash payments, junkets and home improvements in exchange for city contracts. The 48-page indictment against the charismatic ex-politician _ once considered a rising star in the national Democratic Party _ charges him with seven counts of racketeering, fraud and bribery.</p><p>The trial, which starts with jury selection Tuesday, marks the climax of an intense, seven-year federal probe into corruption at Atlanta City Hall that lasted almost as long as Campbell's tenure from 1994 to 2002 as leader of the South's largest city. The investigation led to the convictions of 10 former city officials and contractors, all tied to the Campbell administration.</p><p>Now, prosecutors will make their case against Campbell, armed with thousands of documents and dozens of potential witnesses intended to show he used his position for personal gain and to benefit his friends.</p><p>Among the allegations are that Campbell accepted $50,000 in cash from a strip club operator who wanted help getting a liquor license for a second club and $55,000 from a computer company vying for a contract to prepare the city's computers for Y2K. He also allegedly accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris worth nearly $13,000 from an unnamed water company.</p><p>Campbell _ himself a lawyer _ is the longest-standing member of his defense team, having changed attorneys several times since his indictment nearly 18 months ago. He has vehemently denied the charges and has waged his own war against prosecutors, a fight he promises to continue in the courtroom during a trial expected to last six weeks. A jury, likely to include his former constituents, will decide whether he illegally used his position.</p><p>"They're lies from beginning to end," Campbell said when the indictment was handed up in 2004. "The only thing that's correct in this indictment is the spelling of my name."</p><p>Neither Campbell nor his attorneys would comment for this story.</p><p>"They're acting a lot on what people might think about Bill Campbell, but when the rubber meets the road, I don't know what kind of case they've got," said attorney Bruce Harvey, who represented Campbell's top aide and close friend who was convicted and sentenced in 2002 on charges he took bribes.</p><p>After leaving office, Campbell had a brief stint as an radio talk show host before moving to Stuart, Fla., to practice law.</p><p>Campbell first made a name for himself as a 7-year-old second-grader in Raleigh, N.C., where he integrated the city's public school system as the lone black child at Murphey School _ where he would remain isolated for five years. After high school, he graduated from Vanderbilt University and attended Duke University's law school.</p><p>He came to Atlanta to work at a law firm, and later worked as an attorney for two years at the U.S. Justice Department. At 28, he became an Atlanta city councilman, a position he held for 12 years. Anointed by Maynard Jackson, the city's first black mayor, Campbell sailed to victory in his first mayoral election.</p><p>Seen by some as Jackson's heir-apparent for his stance on affirmative action in city business practices, Campbell helped bring about much of the contruction of the skyline that Atlanta now enjoys, including Philips Arena, high-rise condominiums, live-work developments and the virtual disappearance of housing projects. And for the first time in more than 30 years, Atlanta grew under his watch, adding 40,000 people to the city proper, said Bob Holmes, a political science professor at Clark Atlanta University who is currently writing a book on Maynard Jackson.</p><p>"In terms of economic development, it was probably the best eight years in the history of the city in terms of growth," said Holmes, a 34-year resident of Atlanta and former head of the Southern Center for Political Studies at Clark Atlanta.</p><p>"Believe it or not, the economic development that occurred during his administration was greater than Jackson's and (former Mayor Andrew) Young's administrations combined," he said.</p><p>But Campbell left the city with a budget deficit and, like his predecessors, failed to fix the city's crumbling infrastructure. His successor, Mayor Shirley Franklin, easily won re-election in November by building her reputation on cleaning up what some saw as Campbell's messes.</p><p>Franklin erased the city's budget problems, started fixing the city's crumbling sewers, and quieted talk of corruption in City Hall. As a result, she was named one of the nation's five best big-city mayors by Time Magazine and she received a Profile in Courage Award by the Kennedy Library Foundation for her tough decisions.</p><p>How Campbell will be remembered will largely be up to a jury.</p>
