Lawyer: Noose isn't his clients'

Section: SoundOFF

Meghan Gordon

A lawyer for three white Jefferson Parish supervisors said Monday that a noose, bullwhip and other objects alleged by a black employee to convey racial intimidation in the workplace didn't belong to any of the three men and were likely practical jokes.

Jefferson Parish's internal team investigating the charges, meanwhile, completed more than 40 interviews Monday and expects to issue a report by Thursday, administrators said.

Scott McQuaig, a defense lawyer hired by two superintendents and a foreman in the sewerage department, denied that the objects had anything to do with race and said they remained in a common work area after being passed down from previous supervisors.

Last week, Terrence Lee, a black sewerage department worker, said that he felt racial hostility when he entered the work space occupied by his supervisors, superintendent Bill Hartline and foreman Michael Chauvin, or when he walked past the Confederate flag plate on a truck owned by general superintendent Glenn Miller.

Danatas King, Lee's lawyer, said the objects demonstrated a deplorable state of race relations inside parish government.

McQuaig said the items were mischaracterized by Lee, an employee the lawyer described as an angry personality who had a history of lodging unfounded complaints. He said the most recent discipline problem that landed Lee a three-week suspension originally scheduled to begin Monday involved Lee telling Hartline and Chauvin: "All of you are thieves and crooks and I'm going to take you down."

"He's a disgruntled malcontent who's had problems with everyone in the department -- his supervisors and co-workers alike," he said.

The parish hasn't released details of Lee's disciplinary hearing, other than to say that administrators deferred the punishment during the investigation.

'Wasn't any deficiency'

King said his client was being mistreated because of his race.

"By him standing up for himself, this was deemed to be insubordination," he said. "It wasn't any deficiency in his duties, his job, his work. When he just got to the point that he couldn't take it anymore, they claimed that he was insubordinate."

Hartline was suspended with pay pending the investigation's outcome, McQuaig said, while the two other men remain at work. This is the first complaint against Hartline in his 24 years with the parish, the lawyer said.

McQuaig said he does not know who referred the three men to his law office.

He recently handled a residency challenge that ousted a candidate from the Senate 6th District election, an outcome that narrowed the field challenging incumbent Sen. Julie Quinn. McQuaig's suit named as plaintiffs two voters from Hammond and Metairie who did not know each other.

Quinn and Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard share a longtime political consultant, Greg Buisson.

Carpenter's contraption

McQuaig explained a wooden contraption from which hung a rope knotted in the shape of a noose as a practical joke that a parish carpenter made years ago. A pull of the rope extends a boot that swings up and outward to kick the user.

"These are things that have just been there for years," he said. "I don't know of anyone who they belonged to who is still there."

King posed the question of how the supervisors know the object's intent if they didn't own it or install it in the office. Besides, he said, the iconic image can't be dismissed.

"It looks like a noose to me, and why would it have a loop if it's just a rope that you pull?" he said.

Lee also photographed a bullwhip hanging on a wooden post and a nearby sign reading, "BILL'S WHIPPING POST" and a dart board with an image of an African American man pinned to the bull's eye.

While McQuaig said none of the objects belonged to his client, he acknowledged that employees gave Hartline the whipping post sign to rib him for his hard management style. The attorney said the image at the center of the dart board was a photo of a white man with a fish -- a relic of a fishing trip taken by several employees who, upon their return, threw darts at their friend's likeness because he won a cash pool for reeling in the largest fish.

King, meanwhile, asked why the items were removed by parish administrators and later handed over to the FBI if they were so innocuous.

Lee hasn't reported to work since Nov. 1, even though administrators told him his suspension was deferred during the investigation. King sent the parish a letter Friday saying his client would not resume his job immediately because of the hostile environment.

Tim Whitmer, chief aide to Broussard, said parish lawyers determined the declaration to mean that Lee was resigning from his position.