A former Cobb Sheriff’s Office sergeant running to unseat his old boss has filed a lawsuit alleging Sheriff Neil Warren used his office to undermine a political rival by interfering with his personnel file to make it appear he was fired when he resigned.
The complaint also accuses the Sheriff’s Office of distributing the inaccurate personnel file to media and others.
The Sheriff’s Office said it had not been served and would not comment on pending litigation on Thursday.
James Herndon recently won $30,000 from the county, mostly in attorney fees, as part of a separate suit he filed against Warren for blocking him from official Sheriff's Office social media accounts.
Herndon worked in the Sheriff’s Office for 16 years before leaving in September of 2017 under contentious circumstances. He had been under investigation for allegedly downloading an anonymous web browser on a county computer, an investigation Herndon says was retaliation for speaking out about problems in the department.
According to the new complaint filed against Warren and Cobb County, Herndon was fired the same day he expressed an interest in running for sheriff. He appealed his firing and reached a settlement with the county to resign instead.
The Sheriff’s Office should have removed the reference to his termination and issued a finding in the investigation file to read “not sustained”—neither guilty nor exonerated, according to the executed settlement, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the Open Records Act.
When the AJC obtained Herndon’s personnel file through an open records request last spring, as he prepared to run for office, his letter of resignation was missing from his file. Instead, there was a memo summarizing the investigation and notification that his employment had been terminated. His paperwork said his departure was “involuntarily.”
When the newspaper inquired about the discrepancy between the settlement and the personnel file, Commander Robert Quigley, who oversees open records compliance for the Sheriff’s Office, claimed staff had handed over the wrong file by mistake and provided another version.
In August 2019, Herndon formally announced his candidacy.
Shortly thereafter, the complaint says Herndon received a letter informing him that his termination had been reinstated. The letter was signed by Sheriff Warren and Herndon says it was placed in his mailbox without postage.
It is unclear whether anyone from the county attorney’s office reviewed the letter before it was sent. Cobb County Attorney Bill Rowling did not respond to questions submitted through County Spokesman Ross Cavitt.
Warren, who is running for re-election in 2020, is under investigation by the state ethics commission for alleged campaign finance violations. Herndon is one of three Democrats who have entered the race.
In the letter, which was attached to the complaint filed with the Cobb Superior Court, Warren accuses Herndon of violating the original settlement by disparaging himself and the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office. The settlement included a confidentiality clause in which Herndon agreed to refrain from critical or derogatory comments, but that such a provision “shall not be interpreted to prohibit statements that are protected by the First Amendment.”
The Sheriff’s Office subsequently informed the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, which altered Herndon’s file to say he was fired. The complaint alleges these actions harmed his employment opportunities and caused emotional and financial distress.
Herndon is seeking a jury trial and has asked for damages, attorney fees and for his personnel file to be amended.
“Despite the existence of a valid and enforceable agreement, Defendants have refused to amend the IA files, refused to honor Plaintiff’s 2017 resignation, reported Plaintiff’s departure from his employment as a termination instead of a resignation, specifically to Georgia P.O.S.T. and several news outlets, and released Plaintiff’s inaccurate file and the agreement to the public,” the complaint reads.
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