Jim Harris, former chief of staff for state Treasurer Dennis Milligan, testified Tuesday that he had nothing to do with the public release in 2015 of an intraoffice email in which he had detailed his suspicions about a treasurer office employee's mental health and shared derogatory insights about the man.
Milligan testified later that his April 27, 2015, firing of that employee, David Singer, wasn't based on the April 6, 2015, email that Harris wrote to an assistant, but on "Mr. Singer's performance, and his continued upsetting of the office."
Tuesday marked the second day of a trial over a lawsuit Singer filed in 2015, alleging that Milligan fired him based on Harris' unfounded musings in the email about Singer's mental health and Singer's interactions with female employees. Singer contends the firing was discriminatory, based on a false perception that he suffered from a mental disability, and that the disseminated email was defamatory.
The email was published on the website of KATV-TV, Channel 7, on May 4, 2015, after Harris, upset about an interview the station aired in which Singer complained about his firing and about the treasurer's office, went to the station and handed a copy of it to reporter Marine Glisovic.
Harris acknowledged that he told Glisovic it constituted "the real story."
Milligan told jurors there was nothing wrong with that, because Harris "felt the office was being represented poorly, and he wanted to make sure they [the TV station] had all the documents that had been released." Milligan added, "He wanted to make sure Channel 7's management had all the details."
Attorneys for Milligan and Harris contend that Harris wasn't delivering anything new to the TV station, because it already had been released as part of Singer's personnel file, which Channel 7 and other media outlets requested after Singer was fired. But Singer contends the email wasn't a part of his personnel file when the file was given to the first reporters to request it. He said it also wasn't given to him when he was given a copy of his personnel file before he left the building on the day he was fired.
A dispute exists over whether the email actually had been in the personnel file that the treasurer's office released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests before Harris' visit to Channel 7.
It's also not clear when, if ever, the email was added to the personnel file, or how many news organizations received a copy of it. John Lyon, the first reporter to receive Singer's personnel file after his firing, testified last year that he didn't receive a copy of the email with the file. Glisovic testified last year that before Harris' visit, she hadn't had a chance to review all the documents the station received in response to its request, and didn't know if the email was included.
According to testimony Tuesday, the email was later published in its entirety on May 28, 2015, on the Arkansas Times' blog. Articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about Singer's firing and the backlash quoted snippets of the email.
On Monday, the treasurer's human-resources director testified that she didn't even know an email existed when she sent a notice to Singer that his personnel file had been requested by reporters.
Also Monday, a former assistant attorney general who advised several state offices, including the treasurer's office, testified that employees have to be given a chance to object before an agency releases their personnel files. She said she had spoken on the phone in March and April of 2015 with the treasurer's office's management employees who indicated they were considering terminating Singer, and who discussed some parts of the email with her. But she said she was never shown a copy of the entire email and never told the employees to release it as part of Singer's personnel file.
In fact, she said, a different section of the attorney general's office was in charge of reviewing state employees' objections to personnel-file releases and advising agencies how to respond.
Harris testified in August, in an earlier trial that resulted in a mistrial, that he never would have given the email to Channel 7 if he didn't believe the attorney general's office had approved its release. Harris said the email that he wrote to one of his management assistants, Jason Brady, was part of a private conversation.
The trial continues at 9 a.m. today before Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller.
Metro on 02/01/2017