In a filing, a central Arkansas police chief found ineligible to hold the post asserts that false statements were made against him by a city council member in the state's high court.
Geoffrey Herweg, former chief of the Jacksonville Police Department, was barred from holding the position last month by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The ruling, which upheld a lower court decision, was related to a 2002 conviction in which he lied to police in Texas while serving as an officer for another agency.
Jacksonville City Council member Tonya Smith, in her statement before the state Supreme Court, had reportedly argued that Herweg was on duty and was arrested after “wrecking and abandoning his patrol vehicle and lying to law enforcement officers who were investigating the incident.”
Herweg, in an affidavit filed Wednesday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, asserted that he was in a personal vehicle and off-duty at the time he became involved in the December 2000 wreck that resulted damage to a house.
The affidavit is part of continued proceedings in Smith's lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville, records show.
The ousted police chief also contended that the police chief post is not an "office" and that he should become eligible to return to that position.
Herweg stated that “publishing slanderous non-facts as facts does nothing to bolster the Court’s integrity that is questioning my integrity and fitness to hold a position as a municipal police chief.”
Herweg is seeking that Smith be removed from office, court documents show. Smith should also be held in contempt of court and be made to pay attorney fees, he argued.
On Wednesday, five officers with the Jacksonville Police Department sued to remove the agency's mayor-designated "director," accusing City Attorney Robert Bamburg of holding the job illegally, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported.
The officers argued that Bamburg is barred by state law from simultaneously holding two city jobs as an elected official.