Lawsuit clams discrimination, wrongdoing by county officials

A lawsuit filed against Pitt County by its former attorney said he was among several mistreated Black employees and that his advice to follow legal procedure led to his termination.

The suit was filed May 14 in U.S. District Court against Pitt County, its Board of Commissioners, County Manager Janis Gallagher and Commissioner Chris Nunnally on behalf of former county attorney Bryan Wardell. It said that Wardell filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Feb. 5 and received a notice of a right to sue on April 8.

Wardell assumed the role of Pitt County attorney on Aug. 7, becoming the first Black county attorney. The lawsuit said that he spent over a decade as the senior assistant county attorney in Durham County and that he was the sole candidate to interview for the position. It alleges that once he entered the role, he was subjected to and witnessed discrimination as well as practices that violated state law.

The suit attempted to establish that Pitt County government has a culture of discrimination and said that 25 department heads in the county’s 28 departments are white. It said that Gallagher, who was appointed county manager in 2022 after she served as county attorney for 14 years, threatened two Black officials with termination which led to their resignation.

Gallagher rejected the notion that the county, staff or commissioners are involved in discriminatory practices.

“At no time has the county, its management, or its commissioners participated in or condoned any form of discrimination,” a statement from the manager said. “Pitt County does not tolerate any form of discrimination. Pitt County and its management deny all allegations of wrongdoing. However, because these matters are related to private personnel matters and ongoing litigation, the county is not able to comment further at this time.”

Artur Davis, lead attorney on Wardell’s case through the law firm HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, identified the two threatened employees as Brian Barnett, former deputy county manager who now serves as Davie County manager, and Augustine Frazer, who served as interim director of Pitt County DSS in 2022 before he departed for a job in Maryland.

Time constraints prevented The Daily Reflector from reaching Frazer and Barnett. Barnett left Pitt County in June 2022 for the Davie County job, an opportunity he could not pass up, he said at the time. He said he was grateful to learn from Gallagher and Scott Elliott, her predecessor.

“Pitt County is a great place and I will speak highly to anyone who looks this way,” he said at the time. “You have a bunch of folks out there every day giving 110 percent to make this a great place for residents. The people here really care about the people in the community that they are serving.”

The suit further states that during his tenure Wardell heard Gallagher “belittle the competence” of Pitt County Sheriff Paula Dance, the first Black woman to be elected sheriff in North Carolina. It also said that in 2021 Lisa Overton, an assistant county attorney, made a human resources complaint about Gallagher.

According to Pitt County Overton was employed from July of 2008 to July of 2014.

The suit further claimed Wardell was not allowed to hire another assistant county attorney because new hires had to wait until a future budget cycle; other departments meanwhile had a chance to make hires. It alleged that Gallagher nixed the hiring of a new attorney when she discovered the candidate was a Black woman.

Wardell was not invited to an annual gathering of Greenville and Pitt County officials, the suit said, and he was tasked with building relationships with local officials like Dance, District Attorney Faris Dixon, Pitt Community College President Lawrence Rouse and Greenville City Attorney Emanuel McGirt, all of whom are Black. He was not asked to develop rapport with white influencers, the suit said.

Commissioners voted to remove Wardell after a closed session at their Nov. 20 meeting. On the night he was terminated, Wardell told then-chairwoman Mary Perkins-Williams that he was not sure if there was proper notice to move into a closed session. Commissioner Tom Coulson added that in his almost 20-year service on the board, commissioners would move into a closed session at a member’s request regardless of notice.

Perkins-Williams informed Wardell the closed session was for a personnel matter. The board, under Nunnally’s motion and a second from Beth Ward, moved into closed session with a 9-1 vote. The no was from Melvin McLawhorn.

After the session, Nunnally moved for the board to terminate Wardell on the grounds of dissatisfaction with his level of service. The motion passed unanimously by a show of hands. A termination letter was sent to Wardell the following.

Davis said his client was not aware the closed session would be about his termination. Davis said Wardell’s hesitation was “one of many” times that he attempted to keep the board from subverting rules.

The lawsuit said that Wardell twice identified deficiencies in county contracts that utilized $10 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, but that Gallagher directed him to ignore those deficiencies. When he refused, she steered the contracts to the commissioners without the attorney’s customary OK, the suit said.

It also alleged that Wardell attempted to prevent public funds from being used for Lake Glenwood in the Eastern Pines area. In October of 2023, the board voted to accept a donation of the lake and surrounding land for a park and to budget $1 million for dam repairs and other improvements.

The lawsuit said that turning the land into a park was Nunnally’s idea but it would cost an additional $5 million for insurance. It said Nunnally pressured Wardell to approve that expense or another maneuver to avoid the cost of insurance, including asserting sovereign immunity in the event of injury or property damage. Wardell told him that went against state constitutional principles.

The discussion led Nunnally to tell the Lake Glenwood HOA that Wardell had “deliberately misrepresented” the county’s scope of authority, the suit said, and led him and Gallagher to discuss Wardell’s termination.

Damages sought in the lawsuit are for Wardell’s backpay and ongoing economic challenges brought about by his termination. He said that public news of Wardell being fired hurt future job prospects and his ability to seek a public position. Damages will be sought on grounds of mental anguish and other factors, too.