It has been about a year and a half since Wanda Leonard filed her Federal Lawsuit against Cleveland Community College and the CCC Board of Trustees. I will not try to describe what the lawsuit is about, I will just attach the Original Complaint at the end of this article so everybody will have an equal chance to know exactly what happened and how, if there is any justice, CCC and the BoTs will get themselves spanked very hard and pay compensatory and punitive damages in such large amounts that such as this will never happen again.
A federal lawsuit, any lawsuit, has procedures and processes to follow which just takes time. One of the things that are normally required is mediation. Foolishly the CCC BoT’s chose to wait out Ms. Leonard with the hopes that she would be worn down by the process. But Ms. Leonard held firm. Witnesses have been deposed under oath or are in the final stages of being deposed and subpoenas will soon be issued that will require witnesses to come to court or US Marshals will find them and hold them in custody for the trial. Also, Federal Court documents indicate the Jury Trial in Federal Court in Asheville will state is four to six weeks.
If Cleveland County’s history in Federal Court holds true, like in the Dante Murphy v. Cleveland County DSS, the witnesses have already learned that to lie under oath, on the stand or in depositions, gives them a short cut straight to Federal Prison. In the Murphy v. DSS case, the DSS witnesses who thought the would bluff and lie through their teeth, when they found out that the Feds will put you in prison for perjury (lying), they ended up singing like canaries. And DSS had to pay off Rev. Murphy.
Only thing about the DSS case, neither the DSS Board or the Commissioners disciplined those that did wrong to Rev. Murphy. They even promoted one of the main wrongdoers, Jane Shooter, to the interim DSS Director. I am positive that Ms. Leonard has advised her attorneys of this fact. And Ms. Leonard’s attorneys will tell the judge and the jury that it is Cleveland County’s leadership’s habit of not punishing or disciplining employees who do wrong.
That kind of stuff does not go over well with judges and juries and they have a way of getting their point across to so called leaders who continue NOT to get the message. That message being to follow the law. Or else.
AS for me, I say CCC and the Bot’s deserve everything the Court throws at them. They have refused to answer to the people, they have refused to comment on any of my articles requesting they do what is right. I say, they deserve everything they get and probably more.
Stay tuned folks, “s— is about to hit the fan” for CCC and the BoT’s. We will let you know at every twist and turn. Hey, Springtime in Asheville is nice. Perhaps I will do some Court watching in regard to this trial. Anybody want to go with me?
[gview file=”https://citizensforgoodgovernment.org/online/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Complaint-Leonard-v-CCC-BoT.pdf”]