Former police lieutenant appeals

October 09, 2008 11:57 pm

— By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
A former Joplin police lieutenant who was fired earlier this year is appealing his termination in court.
A lawsuit on behalf of Geoff Jones, who worked at the Joplin Police Department for 18 years, has been filed in Jasper County Circuit Court in Carthage. The lawsuit challenges decisions by city administrators and the Joplin Personnel Board in Jones’ case.
Jones was fired Feb. 8 by police Chief Lane Roberts. Most of the reasons cited by Roberts, according to the lawsuit, centered around the FBI saying that Jones’ name came up in an unspecified investigation that the federal agency conducted, and that FBI agents could not trust the department as long as Jones was working there.
City administrators did not respond to a Globe request for comment on the lawsuit late Thursday afternoon.
It was alleged that Jones associated with people who had criminal backgrounds because he participated in public poker tournaments. The chief told Jones that his presence at the tournaments was damaging to his reputation and to the department’s reputation, and led to complaints by other officers.
“We could not afford to compromise the investigation, or our relationship with (the FBI) in it, by retaining an employee whose conduct was compromising that relationship,” the police chief said earlier this year.
Jones said the FBI allegations were vague, and that he did not know that people who went to the place where he played recreational poker had criminal backgrounds.
Jones disclosed during his disciplinary probe that he took some prescribed medications.
The chief said the department’s rules required Jones to disclose that at the time the prescriptions were obtained, and that Jones had not done so.
Jones contended that he was not required to disclose his prescriptions unless they prevented him from doing his work.
A fact-finding hearing was conducted March 3 by city administrators to review the chief’s decision. That resulted in a decision March 17 by City Manager Mark Rohr approving Jones’ firing.
Jones then hired an attorney and asked for a review of the city’s actions by the city’s Personnel Board. That hearing was conducted June 18 and continued to July 29. One of the five board members was absent the first day of the hearing and subsequently did not vote on the board’s decision. The board’s chairman, attorney Jim Fleischaker, also did not vote, leaving the decision to three members.
The board decided that Jones’ firing did not take effect until the city manager’s decision on March 17, and the board awarded Jones back pay from then to Feb. 8.
In the lawsuit, Jones’ attorney, Richard Schnake, of Springfield, contends that the city’s fact-finding hearing was not conducted independently of the police chief’s findings and therefore was not valid.
The lawsuit also alleges that the board’s decision was invalid because the number of votes was inadequate under the city’s charter.
Jones contends in the lawsuit that the Personnel Board wrongfully upheld the termination.
He asks that the court reverse the city’s decision to fire him and that it reinstate him to the position he held in the department. The lawsuit also seeks the payment of Jones’ expenses in the lawsuit.