GLASGOW KENTUCKY: As reported earlier on the US Justice Watch, Mayor Darrell Pickett, City Treasurer Susie Pollock and Civilian Safety Officer Lorene Hoffman were indicted after a 2003 audit show discrepancies between Hoffman hours worked and the pay she received.
Pollock and her sister Hoffman state that the payments to Hoffman were authorized by Pickett, then the Glasgow Police Chief with his approval as a way to give Hoffman a pay increase without giving additional increase to the other Civilian Safety Officer employed at the Glasgow Police Department.
The criminal charge against Mayor Pickett was dismissed first by Prosecutor Clay Hundley. After a series of prosecutors to this case resigned; Special Prosecutor Matthew Leveridge then dismissed the criminal charges against Pollock and Hoffman after the city filed a civil case in 2007 with Leveridge stating “this is more appropriately a civil case” despite the fact that Hoffman and Pollock already admitted to falsifying public records.
The lawsuit itself states that Pollock and Hoffman acted with “intent and plan to deceive and defraud the city” and “constitut[ed] a fraudulent conversion of the City’s funds.” Attorney Richard Alexander II drafted the three page complaint for the lawsuit requesting repayment of funds converted plus interest, court costs, attorney fees and all other expenses.
The question the US Justice Watch poses to the public is this. When is the fraudulent taking of public funds by city employees no longer a crime which is prosecuted in the criminal courts? This selective failure to prosecute by Commonwealth Attorney Matthew Leveridge, along with the recent federal indictments of two assistant Glasgow Police Chiefs for narcotics and witness tampering raises red flags as to what exactly is taking place within the Glasgow City Police Department and the Mayors Office. The US Justice Watch will be following up on this story.
