A Monday filing by attorney Michael Roman, who is a defendant in the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald Trump, claims that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) is engaged in an inappropriate romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, the private defense attorney she appointed to prosecute her case against the former president. Roman alleged in the filing that Wade was paid nearly $1 million by Georgia taxpayers, and The Georgia Star News confirmed he has earned over $650,000 while working on the case against Trump.
Roman made his allegations in a motion to dismiss the case against him, arguing the alleged romantic relationship between Willis and Wade (pictured above) made the indictments improper, as the relationship would violate professional ethics rules for attorneys in Georgia and may have violated federal law by failing to make the relationship public. It also calls on Willis to be barred from prosecuting her case against Trump as a consequence of the improper alleged relationship.
The Fulton County government confirms on an accountability website that Wade has been paid $653,881, with the most recent payment dispersed to the lawyer on October 6, 2023.
However, the contract attached to Roman’s filing as an exhibit reveals that Wade agreed to invoice Fulton County for his work in November 2023 and December 2023 on January 5, meaning the current data available online does not reflect the final two months of Wade’s most recent contract. The highest payment Fulton County made to Wade was $39,250, and he generally receives at least $15,000 per month for his work prosecuting Trump.
Roman’s filing notes that Fulton County has a standard procedure for hiring outside defense attorneys for specific cases, and that Willis’ office has documents revealing typical pay ranges between $80 and $140 per hour. Willis hired Wade without following this procedure, and Wade’s second contract Fulton County, obtained through Roman’s filing, shows the county pays him $250 per hour for his work.
Wade joined Willis’ team as a contract attorney in November 2021, and Roman claims Wade filed for divorce within one day of beginning his work on the Trump case.
The filing reveals Wade was paid $200,226 over the duration of his first contract with Fulton County, in which no payment details were committed. He was Fulton County’s highest paid contract attorney, and those payments represented 38.33 percent of Fulton County’s outside spending in 2022.
He remained the highest paid contract attorney in 2023, when the filing purports that Wade received $349,750, and represented 32.06 percent of outside spending by Willis’ office.
The Star News attempted to contact Wade and representatives for Willis and the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, but did not receive a response. Willis reportedly told NBC News she intends to respond through court filings.
Through his filing, Roman also alleges that “some amount of Wade’s income has been used to travel with Willis to traditional vacation destinations and they may have done so with certain members of their families.”
“While the filings in the [Wade] divorce case are sealed by Court order, information obtained outside of court filings indicates that the district attorney and special prosecutor have traveled personally together to such places as Napa Valley, Florida and the Caribbean,” Roman alleged in the filing. It is also claimed that Wade “purchased tickets for both of them to travel on both the Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruise lines.”
Additionally, Roman’s filing alleges that Wade and Willis “have been seen in private together in and about the Atlanta area” and are “believed to have co-habitated in some form or fashion at a location owned by neither of them.”
Wade, who Roman’s attorney notes in the filing “has never tried a felony RICO case,” is a private defense attorney and former municipal court judge who co-owns the Wade & Campbell, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as a “suburban Atlanta firm” which “focuses on personal injury cases, contract litigation, family and domestic law and criminal defense.”
The outlet explained that “Wade was assigned to mentor Willis after she was first elected chief magistrate judge for the suburb of South Fulton in 2019,” when the outlet reported Wade “served on Willis’ transition team” and participated “as Willis re-interviewed every employee in the office for their job.”
While Wade is contracted to work for Fulton County through his Law Offices of Nathan Wade, his firm Wade & Campbell made national headlines in September, when it sent an “uninvited and improper” mailer inviting former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, who he helped indict, to be represented by the firm.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Nathan Wade” by Wade & Campbell.
