WR faces another multi-million dollar lawsuit

On Monday, June 20, Gary Lee entered Warner Robins City Hall as the Head of the Economic Development Department. Only a short while later, Lee watched as his position was torn away from him, when Warner Robins Mayor and Council voted in approval to combine his department with another, dissolve his position and designate the city administrator the interim department head of the new Community and Economic Development Department.

Following the meeting, many constituents were present to show their support for Lee and make mayor and council bear witness of their distaste, including members of Lee’s family and former President of Houston County Branch of the NAACP Reverend Dr. Rutha Jackson.

It is due to these actions taken by the City of Warner Robins Government, that Mayor Toms, as well as other entities within the municipal government, is being sued for $20 million. Attorney Preston Haliburton reached out to The Houston Home Journal to discuss the case.

“We are pursuing a federal civil rights claim,” Haliburton says. “[This is] the same thing that’s been going on for a number of years. It’s another political attempt to get Gary Lee. They’re just using a different vehicle or mechanism to do so. They’ve tried to arrest him twice, falsely. They’ve suspended him, and he gets rehired every time.”

Haliburton told The Journal that he, alongside a legal team including Attorneys Bob Cheeley and Mike Bowers, will be taking certain “bad actors” from the City of Warner Robins to federal court. “We always anticipated the city making a knee-jerk rogue retaliation against him, we just never knew they’d be this transparent doing so.” Haliburton said that this legal team believes that the dissolving of Lee’s position as a city employee was another attempt to retaliate against him, after Lee spoke out against the city’s “discriminatory bidding” against A2D, a fiber optics company that is also currently suing the city. Haliburton calls this attempt futile.

“This is a continuing pattern of what we believe is racial animus, discrimination and retaliation against a whistleblower,” the attorney added.

Cheeley will be taking the lead on this legal team, after Haliburton has spent a number of years attempting to resolve the city’s legal troubles with Lee outside of federal court. “It is our position that it is a not-so-veiled politically motivated firing.”

These three attorneys are not the only ones readying to assist Lee in court. In his discussion with The Journal, Haliburton noted, “There are a number of attorneys across the state that have volunteered to help Gary. His name carries a lot of strength in the state of Georgia and even though there were attempts to damage him, his name carries a lot of weight.”

Lead Attorney Cheeley also gave words in discussion of the matter. In doing so, he said, “The decision by Mayor Toms to terminate the Economic Development Department is a thinly veiled disguise to really eliminate the only African American Department Head in Warner Robins city government. This is a federal whistleblower and denial of constitutional civil rights case against Mayor Toms as he continues to eliminate African Americans in city government.”

Lee and his legal team will be pursuing $20 million in damages due to harm done to Lee’s reputation.

The full extent of this case is still being investigated, and the full list of “actors” that this legal team will be pursuing will be revealed as their investigation comes to a close.

“We had some bold elected officials and city governments officials that came forward,” Haliburton added, “who felt the motives were improper to terminate Lee. We’re grateful to the whistleblowers.”

“We believe that Gary has always attempted to resolve this matter amicably,” Haliburton said in closing, “The fact of the matters is, the facts are on our side, the law is on our side, and at this point, with Cheeley’s lead, we hope a federal judge will be on our side.”

HHJ News