Jim Harris, chief of staff for state Treasurer Dennis Milligan, testified Wednesday that he never would have given a television reporter a copy of an email he wrote questioning an employee's sanity if he didn't believe the attorney general's office had approved its release.
Harris' April 5, 2015 email to his deputy chief of staff, Jason Brady, was intended to be a private conversation about an employee who was soon fired, Harris acknowledged. But it ended up being published in its entirety on the website of KATV-TV, Channel 7, as well as on the Arkansas Times blog, and excerpts from it were published by other news outlets including the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
David Singer, the employee who was the subject of the email, says Harris' distribution of unfounded personal opinions constitutes defamation for which a federal jury should award punitive damages. Singer says the dissemination of the musings cast a negative light on him to his friends and family, particularly his two sons, and has prevented him from obtaining employment.
After being sworn in as treasurer on Jan. 14, 2015, Milligan hired Singer as a way of thanking him for his and his wife's services as volunteers for Milligan's campaign. At the time, Singer was out of work, having been laid off from his circulation job at the Pine Bluff Commercial as a result of downsizing. Singer's wife, Wendy, had died in June 2014 from breast cancer after extensive treatments failed.
Singer's 30 years of experience in the circulation departments of newspapers, including the Democrat-Gazette, prompted Milligan's executive management team to try to find a spot for him in jobs where they believed he would excel because of his "newspaper background," according to Brady and Grant Wallace, then an assistant chief of staff under Harris. But both Brady and Wallace said they soon became disappointed in Singer's inability to adequately perform jobs in communications, public relations and information technology.
Amy Ford, a retired senior assistant attorney general who regularly took calls from the treasurer's office seeking legal advice, testified on Monday, the first day of the trial, that Brady called her in March 2015 asking whether they had grounds to terminate Singer, citing several instances of him not completing tasks. She said she advised Brady to start documenting what Singer was doing wrong.
Harris indicated his email was an effort to document his "concerns" about Singer.
The email began by telling Brady that Singer "talks to his dead wife" in personal Facebook posts, noting, "Sometimes he posts messages two or three times a day as if she could read what he says on Facebook."
He then quoted from Singer's April 3, 2015, post that began, "Good evening my darling."
Harris wrote, "For some time now I have been concerned about his mental health."
He went on to say he had overheard snippets of Singer's side of a telephone conversation indicating that Singer believed women in the office didn't like him and called him "a little troll," but that they would "change their tune" once they saw that he was a "secret agent."
"I continue to suspect that David has mental problems because he is unable to deal with the grief he has" over the death of his wife, Harris said. He also noted that he feared that another former employee who "has this delusion that he is a master political mind" was "manipulating" Singer in an effort to gain power in the treasurer's office.
Harris also wrote about seeing Singer sitting at his desk "staring into space," and accused him of violating the chain of command by speaking directly to Milligan about problems, and talking too much to an employee who had known his wife.
"I am concerned that David is trying to get her to help him mourn his late wife so he can hit on her," Harris said, adding, "She says that hasn't happened, but she does not get in situations where they are alone."
Beth Anne Rankin, deputy chief investment officer in the treasurer's office, testified earlier that she never told Harris that Singer was "hitting on" her. She said she likes Singer but did try to avoid conversations with him, simply because she didn't have time for discussions that weren't work-related.
Singer testified a day earlier that he learned about the "disgusting" email after it was published by Channel 7. He said he sued to correct the portrayal of him and his wife that his sons could find years later on the Internet.
When he gave the email to Channel 7, Harris said, he believed it had already been given to the station and to other news organizations that filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information on why Singer was fired. While Harris knew the email might end up being published, he said, his real purpose was that "I wanted them to know that Mr. Singer was a problem employee and they shouldn't just take his word for anything."
Singer had complained about his April 27 termination in an on-air interview with Channel 7.
Wallace, who worked directly under Brady, testified Wednesday that he, Brady and Gary Underwood, also part of the office's executive team, consulted Ford of the attorney general's office after he began getting Freedom of Information Act requests from journalists, some of which sought emails. He said he and other staff members were concerned that Harris' email "referenced mental health," and that its release would violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Wallace said Ford told him that the email was "releasable." Wallace added later, "I was not advised ... to redact out some parts."
Ford testified earlier that she advised the treasurer's office that Harris' comments about Singer's mental health were "problematic." Asked if she approved the email's release, she said, "I will dispute that."
Ford noted that she was questioned about the email by phone while she was in a conference and was distracted. As to whether she approved the release of the email, she said, "I don't recall doing it. I don't recall not doing it."
Metro on 08/11/2016