Former city employee sues city, assistant city manager

Former city employee Marty McDonald has filed a lawsuit against the city of Maricopa, which alleges “malicious prosecution,” “abuse of process,” “negligence,” “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” and “invasion of privacy.”

The suit arises nearly four months after McDonald filed a notice of claim against the city seeking $500,000 in damages, $10,000 in attorney fees, a $25,000 check to the Friends of the Library organization and a letter of apology.

“The city has all but ignored our original claim, so the next step was to file suit,” said McDonald’s lawyer, Clair Lane.

McDonald was placed on administrative leave by the city May 6, 2009, one day after being indicted on two felony charges stemming from the alleged misuse of a city FedEx shipping discount used to mail goods.

However, those charges were dropped when McDonald produced an e-mail showing he requested his personal FedEx account be removed from that of the city prior to doing any shipping.

“When (Kevin) Evans (Maricopa city manager) first came on in 2008, Marty drafted a letter telling him about the FedEx issue, describing copies of e-mails he had and snapshots of computer screens taken,” Lane said. “However, these e-mails or letter were never provided to the investigator by the city.”

The city has maintained a stance that McDonald was not let go because of the indictment, but Lane said he feels assistant city manager Roger Kolman had it out for his client.

“Against internal advice from the Maricopa Police Department, Kolman called upon the Phoenix Police Department to further investigate the situation,” Lane said.

Evans countered that it is commonplace to have outside organizations investigate internal issues. “Our last three investigations into city officials have all been handled by outside organizations,” he said.

While Lane questions the city’s decision to hand over the investigation to the Phoenix Police Department, he also said he wonders who requested prosecution.

“In the detective’s report it stated that the city of Maricopa and FedEx both asked charges be brought against McDonald, but FedEx tells us they never said this,” Lane said. “We want to know who made this statement; if it was Roger Kolman or Kevin Evans, the city is going to be in a world of trouble.”

In addition to the mishandling of information, Lane alleges after his client was found innocent of all charges, Kolman launched a second investigation into the misappropriate distribution of funds from Pinal County to the Friends of the Library account by his client.

“My focus jurors said they believe someone was out to get Marty,” Lane said. “If Evans wanted to get rid of McDonald, all he had to do was say he didn’t like him.”

Evans responded to accusations against the city through an e-mail sent out after the Aug. 24 hearing during which the charges against McDonald were dropped.

“The City strongly disagrees that it has done anything improper concerning the investigation conducted by the Phoenix Police Department,” Evans said. “The City initially tried to negotiate a severance agreement with Mr. McDonald. However, while he was on administrative leave, the City, through an internal audit, discovered additional serious issues concerning Mr. McDonald’s employment; therefore, the City terminated Mr. McDonald on August 7, 2009.”

Lane alleges the email sent out by Evans was defamatory against his client.

“At one time Evans had a glowing letter of recommendation for Marty, and then he comes out and issues this statement,” Lane said.

The suit was filed in Pinal County Superior Court Thursday, and the city has 30 days to respond before the scheduling of a trial starts to take place.

“I am ready to pick a jury tomorrow; we have all our supporting document, interviews and evidence gathered for every item in this complaint,” Lane said.

Unlike the original claim, no financial limits have been set. Instead the suit states an amount to be determined by a jury. However, Lane said he predicts the amount a jury determines to be fair could exceed $1 million.

“This indictment will stay on McDonald’s record forever, and when people see that charges were dropped, they will assume it was because he had a good lawyer and not that he was innocent,” Lane said.

Lane added that the entire situation could have been avoided if the city had entered into a severance package with McDonald on June 16.

On that day Lane stated he and McDonald were present at a city council meeting to sign a severance package that offered Marty 90 days of pay and a letter of reference. Also as a condition of the package McDonald would have lost his right to prosecute the city in the future. However, at the last minute the city pulled the offer off the table.

“If they signed into that severance package, we wouldn’t be here now,” Lane said.

File photo