BONUS HOUR! New details on Charlotte's payoff to police chief (05-09-2025--Hour4)

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[00:00:28] Welcome to the bonus hour. It sounds just like the regular third hour, but anyway. 704-570-1110. Yesterday, the wife of former Charlotte City Councilman Tark Bakari, her name is Krista Bakari, she wrote a very, very long, I printed it out, it's four pages full, dense, four pages outlining details surrounding

[00:00:58] this scandal that is now engulfing the Charlotte City government over its payout of $300,000 to the police chief. And she details through a series of bullet points, basically, information that requires more investigation. And she's urging local media to keep digging into this stuff. And it is clear that there's information she has and she's urging local media to keep digging into this stuff.

[00:01:28] She put into this post that was not known. In fact, let me do this real quick. This is over at WCNC TV, WCNC.com. Council member Tijuana Brown, who represents District 3, issued a statement in response to the news conference that was held, the news conference that we covered yesterday on the show.

[00:01:55] That news conference occurred on Wednesday at 3 p.m. So right after I got off the air, they held a news conference where they said, we're going to go after the leakers. And how dare Victoria Watlington, their colleague on council, how dare she call us unethical and possibly illegal activity? She basically, you know, she basically was alleging corruption regarding this issue, this payoff.

[00:02:24] They held the news conference. They attacked her. They said, we're not corrupt. We're totally fine. Everything's above board, but we can't discuss anything because personnel matters. And Tijuana Brown was not at that press conference. What she said after, though, was the following.

[00:03:10] She also recalled during the council's retreat, when they went up to Asheville, she said she was the only member who raised her hand when asked who had trust among their colleagues. She says, I raised my hand alone because I believed in building trust. That trust was damaged yesterday. So back to Krista Bukhari's post on Facebook. She talked about, and I covered this at the end of the last hour.

[00:03:38] We spoke with Krista at the beginning of the last hour. Withholding of critical information. This was about the ethics complaint that was filed by the NAACP president, the local chapter president, filed an ethics complaint with the city. The city itself, the city attorney dismissed it for lack of merit. They dismissed the complaint against Tark Bukhari, who was a sitting city councilman at the time. Dismissed it.

[00:04:08] They then, the attorney and the manager knew this, the attorney knew this, and the mayor knew this. They then go into a closed session where the attorney advises the council to settle with the police chief. Because the police chief was threatening to sue. But the lawsuit apparently had no other evidence in it that was not in the ethics complaint.

[00:04:37] So this gets to bullet point number two. Recommending settlement of taxpayer dollars lacking a legal claim. Anthony Fox, the city attorney, interim city attorney, because they fired the last city attorney. They let that guy go, so Fox has been brought in on an interim basis. Anthony Fox, despite not actually having a lawsuit submitted to any court,

[00:05:04] recommended to council a settlement was warranted so as to avoid public embarrassment, which I'm unclear as to why the city or the council members would suffer public embarrassment if the chief sues the city. Do you, so, like, you think this is, you think this is better than a lawsuit would have been? Like, well, you see, they weren't planning on all of this getting out.

[00:05:33] So, public embarrassment. And two, a potentially costly legal fight that they could ultimately lose. So those are the arguments. And this is one of the valid reasons, by the way, to go into closed session, is to consult with your attorney. And so you're going in there, you're talking to an attorney, you have privilege, right? So it's private. And the attorney is saying, okay, like, you want to do a settlement, it's warranted to avoid public embarrassment and avoid a legal fight,

[00:06:03] could cost a bunch of money, and we could lose it. And what Krista Bocari says is that this was a premeditated falsehood that he presented to his clients that he is bound to serve. As any attorney would quickly know, there has to be some valid form of a legal claim. The only two legal claims that could be argued as relevant to the situation are defamation or a hostile work environment.

[00:06:30] And it's clear to anyone operating with a legal license and a cursory review of the details of the case that they have no merit. So, all right, defamation. She says legal standards for defamation require public false statements of fact communicated to a third party. But private messages, like the text messages between Jennings and Bocari, do not meet that standard.

[00:06:56] There wasn't anything that Bocari said in public either that was defamatory. There was no justification for recommending a settlement or, you know, getting counsel to approve a settlement for defamation. Because defamation did not occur. What are the merits of this phantom lawsuit? You know, that was never drafted, never written, never filed, whatever.

[00:07:22] Maybe there were bullet points and evidence that was presented to counsel. But considering how much we have now learned about what occurred in the council meeting, I suspect we'd have the bullet points by now. Somebody would have said, here was all the evidence as to why we thought we might lose the case. We haven't seen anything like that. Hostile work environment. Only other potential cause for action.

[00:07:51] And she says, such claims require evidence of discrimination based on protected characteristics like race or gender. Policy disagreements, even personal criticisms, even intense personal criticisms, do not meet that threshold. Right? Jennings is a public figure. As a public figure. Not a public elected official, not like that. But just somebody in the public eye. When you are in the public eye, the standard for defamation, libel, slander,

[00:08:21] it's higher than against just a private individual. You are expected to take slings and arrows when you enter the public arena. And when they come, you don't get to sue anybody because they called you names. Which Bocari, by the way, did not do. Next, violating rules of procedure to subvert the council's will. This gets to the original vote that was held on April 28th.

[00:08:51] And it went 5-2 to do the settlement. Because the council members did not have all of the information. Namely, that the complaint that had the same charges in it was rejected by the city government. By the same city attorney. They said no. It's without merit. Then they turned around and recommended it as the reason for a settlement of 300K. That's why I say it smacks up just a shakedown.

[00:09:16] Because if you had enough evidence that made you so scared to litigate against this thing, to defend yourself against a frivolous lawsuit, if you were so worried, why wouldn't you have upheld the complaint? So they go into their closed session. The vote is 5-2. But it doesn't have a majority of the 11 members. So it fails.

[00:09:41] When the council members then reconvene for the second closed session on May 5th, she says they walked into a strategically designed trap based upon a technicality. Because at the first meeting, they apparently did have enough members for a majority, but one of them left. And when you start a meeting and then leave, every vote of anything that comes up is a yes vote. That's what council was unaware of.

[00:10:10] When they show back up on May 5th, they think they're going to try to vote this thing again. And they're told it already passed because of this rule. Which I guess nobody knew about? Which is odd. Because Vi Lyles, the mayor, has been in city government for 30 years. I knew this rule. How could she not? All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say,

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[00:11:39] So back to Krista Bakari's write-up here. And just to finish off one last detail on the previous bullet point about violating rules of procedure, this was the, you know, oh, we didn't have enough votes to pass. And then you come back a week later and it's like, oh, actually we did. And so it already passed. They go in there thinking they're going to cast a vote on the settlement deal.

[00:12:07] But because the lawyer then says, well, we already passed it because of this rule that if you show up and then leave, you get counted as a yes vote. And apparently a council member showed up and then left the closed session. And then they took a vote and it counted as a yes. But nobody said that. Nobody knew that. We are to believe that nobody knew this rule until a week later when they show up to vote again on the settlement because they all thought it didn't pass.

[00:12:35] They are then informed it did actually pass. She says then they spent the remaining time threatening council members on what the consequences would be of leaking this information. On May 5th, one council member who had voted in support of the settlement the previous week then learned from the media this stuff that they were not told before they voted. That council member, unnamed, stated that they wanted to change their vote.

[00:13:04] They were then told they were not going to be allowed to. And she says they were, I guess this was aggressively told. You cannot do that. Next bullet point. Advising knowingly false legal advice with the intent of intimidating a whistleblower. City Attorney Anthony Foxx during the May 5th closed session and then subsequently to the media that week told council members leaking closed session information was a criminal offense

[00:13:33] and he would be launching an investigation and there would be consequences. She, Krista Bocari says there is only one nuanced situation where leaking closed session information is potentially a criminal offense. When a person shares a personnel file publicly. This does not apply to talking about a personnel file either. It's the physical sharing of the file, she says.

[00:13:59] Not only was there no personnel file involved in these closed sessions, making his claim technically impossible, there was actually no personnel content included as any part of the closed sessions. There was Bocari's text messages. There was Jennings' threats of a lawsuit and requests for a settlement. At no point was Jennings' performance history or any other personnel categorized information discussed.

[00:14:25] The absolute worst outcome that can occur if the council votes to censure. That's a far cry from a criminal charge. There is no scenario any city attorney would not know this. She says this is grounds for an ethics complaint to be sent to the North Carolina Bar Association for review with potential disbarment. I got an email here from John who says, One of the three council members that voted against the settlement,

[00:14:55] especially the one who is claiming illegal activity, should file a complaint with the bar over the lawyer for not fulfilling his duty as the council's lawyer and representing them in this case by intentionally leaving out key information. Yeah, this is a very big no-no for lawyers. You're not allowed to do that. If you get a plea deal or something, you have to bring it to your client. You don't get to hide stuff from your client

[00:15:24] because they need to be the ones that call the shots. You work for them. Next up, ignoring clear workplace retaliation instances. In addition to Chief Jennings' top aides working behind the scenes to attack Bocari via the NAACP complaint, the same theme was playing out for Officer Daniel Redford in the FOP. I covered this yesterday.

[00:15:51] He got hit with a lawsuit from one of the aides to Jennings, the chief spokesperson for CMPD. Sued the Fraternal Order of Police president. That lawsuit was denied by the court. I believe she's now filing an appeal for it. But Redford, the FOP president, was brought to the Civil Review Board on allegations that he used his role in the FOP

[00:16:21] to comment negatively about the chief during the battle over the vests. And he got a suspension for that. And she says he was exercising his First Amendment right as a private citizen to voice his opinion. When he returned to work, he was then demoted from the post that he had earned over a career keeping cats safe. The Charlotte Area Transit System, I guess. Well, not I guess. It is like the Charlotte Area Transit System.

[00:16:51] They busted him down to patrol. That's retaliation. That's actually illegal. Next, making false public statements while not properly investigating employee code of conduct violations. I'll cover that one next. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina just a quick drive up the mountain? And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:18:12] Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Here's a message from Russ. He says, Every scrap of new information on this payout looks worse. The mayor, the chief, the attorney, all look really bad. Possibly criminal. And council members seem either naive or incompetent at best.

[00:18:42] Yeah, so there comes a point where people need to make a decision, you know? There comes a point where the elected officials are going to have to make a decision on whether to keep pushing forward with this current narrative, hoping it just goes away, or they're going to have to turn. Right?

[00:19:11] And I make no predictions. I don't know who's going to decide when, but I can say that this story, like, this story's not going away for me. And there's blood in the water. Local media is, they are swarming. Let me see here. I had... Oh, well, they just...

[00:19:39] RH pub said more Democrat corruption. Yeah. Let me get to the remaining bullet points here. From Krista Bocari's Facebook post. The next one was, Making false public statements while not properly investigating employee code of conduct violations. When the bombshell proof dropped from WSOC-TV that Jennings' two top aides used their personal emails to direct the local NAACP president to make the FOIA request

[00:20:08] and the ethics complaint against Tark Bocari, within an hour, the city of Charlotte released a statement saying that they had completed an HR investigation and found there was no violation by those two employees. They were acting in their capacity as private citizens, voicing their opinions, and so no action would be taken. The only reason that these emails were discovered was accidental because the NAACP president, Corinne Mack,

[00:20:37] accidentally forwarded that email to Joe Bruno at WSOC-TV. Accidental forward of an email. She says, and so Krista Bocari says, it is reasonable to believe that if they had used their personal emails in this one instance, there's likely additional evidence of violations in their personal emails, which certainly would have been deleted by them by now, but can be recovered from the carrier with the proper authority.

[00:21:07] It is difficult to believe that the city manager, the mayor, and the city attorney, and the HR department all completed a comprehensive investigation covering all these aspects, plus interviews, and potentially questioning people under oath, and they did this all in under an hour before they publicly cleared the two CMPD officials of wrongdoing. Breaking, like that, that does not sound

[00:21:36] like a thorough investigation to me. Okay? Maybe it was, but it doesn't sound like it to me. Next, breaking confidentiality rules of closed session with knowingly false statements. The mayor, Vi Lyles, made the following statement to the media, quote, the chief was publicly attacked by a former council member who stated his intent was to damage his reputation and end his career. But Bakari actually did not publicly attack Jennings. That did not happen. This information

[00:22:05] was only made public by the strategic efforts of the two top aides of Jennings. The text messaging was, that was sent to Corinne Mack at the NAACP. That wasn't public. Bakari saying, you know, you need to, you need to compromise with me on this. You need to meet me halfway. And I, you know, I will go after you. Like, it's not personal. And, but he never, he never attacked or defamed the chief.

[00:22:36] And what, um, Krista Bakari says is that the mayor's actually breaking the confidentiality of closed session, publicly talking about the content that was discussed in that room and relaying the sentiment that the chief was indeed inappropriately attacked. Vi Lyles is only exposed to censure for these actions though. That's not even a criminal, a criminal behavior because just like the threats of criminal charges for any leaker, the worst you'll get

[00:23:05] is censure. She says, in summary, the city of Charlotte had no legal exposure to a claim by Chief Jennings yet the mayor, the attorney and the manager relied on an improperly used procedural technicality and, uh, these additional tactics to approve taxpayer dollars for their friend and in doing so performed the unethical, immoral and potentially illegal actions they are now exposed to. Councilman Bakari's advocacy for outer vest,

[00:23:35] outer carrier vests was, can be viewed as part of his legislative duties which are protected under legislative immunity. There is no public evidence indicating that Bakari made any false statements about Chief Jennings. His criticisms focused on policy disagreements. His actions, the councilman's actions did not involve misuse of his official capacity. The text messages in question were private communications between the councilman and the chief, defamation claims require that

[00:24:05] false statements be made publicly to third parties. Since these messages were private, they were not disseminated publicly by Bakari. In fact, they were released publicly at the direction of the chief through his top aides to the NAACP. It doesn't meet the standard of criteria for defamation. Were council members advised on any of this in the closed session? Tijuana Brown, one of the council members said, I was not aware of any of this. That's a problem.

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[00:25:34] Get all the details at createavideo.com. One of what comes up right after me on WBT here. So, Brett, welcome, sir. Are you doing all right? It's good to be here. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yes. I'm ready. All right. I'm ready, big time. All right, I'm going to read to you something. Bigly. I've given him no notice. No. So this will be raw and unfiltered. Well, within FCC guidelines, of course. I saw a girl on Reels, the video shorts

[00:26:04] on Facebook, right? The Reels or whatever. What are you doing? I saw a girl on Reels say that she incentivized people to RSVP to her wedding by making the order in which people RSVP the same order that they get to stand up and go get dinner at the wedding. So, in other words, you send out the invitations and the order in which you receive the RSVPs back, that's the order

[00:26:33] that you get your food at the reception. So, like, if the brother-in-law came in first, he's going to get to get the prime rib first. Right. So, because people, you know, don't... Oh, because they wait. They don't RSVP fast enough and you, you know... Yeah. I don't know if you're like, we had lists. We had... I guess I shouldn't say this, but we had A-list, B-list. Oh, really? Yeah, because, well, we had a small venue, so we wanted, you know, every seat full

[00:27:03] and... Makes sense. ...we needed to invite the, you know, certain people. You have to, you know? Yeah, there are the must-haves. Right. Mm-hmm. And so this is... And so when you're not the time that you have to email or mail out the invitations for the B-list. That's... This is the same... I'm guessing she's a... a Virgo. I don't know. I don't know who the person is, but I like this idea because... Yeah. ...I have been to a wedding

[00:27:33] where they ran out of food because they called the... Really? All-you-can-eat? Was it an all-you-can-eat buffet? No. No, obviously not because they ran out. So we... But we are at the table Yeah. And we thought, because we were so hungry, it was like an afternoon wedding and so we were so hungry for dinner. We sit down at the table and we're thinking we're right next to the food. We're like, this is good, the buffet line. But it was self-serve. Right. Self-serve. And then they said, we're going to go for old people first. I was like, okay, fine. I can't object to that. Christy's mom gets up and gets her plate of food, brings it back

[00:28:02] and it's just... She didn't even think like we were like, Betty, what are you doing? Why didn't you bring like a whole mountain of food for the whole table? And she's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And then they ran out because they started at the other end of the room. I was literally the last one in the line. Wow. See, if... Can I critique it? Yeah, yeah. Okay. If I'm the last one in the line, I'm just not going to eat. I didn't. I'm just going to stay in the seat. I'm just going to be like, I'll grab a burger

[00:28:31] later on today or tonight or tomorrow. You wouldn't even get up? No. If I'm the last person? There was a little bit of mashed potatoes left, but there was no toppings. So I did get a little bit of mashed potatoes. Did you get wedding cake? No. Really? This couple had to sue their caterer. Wow. But... No kidding. I'm amazed at how many people know of this kind of thing like where people serve

[00:29:01] and so it raises this question, do you ever remember the food at a wedding? And I would submit you only remember the bad food. I don't... I haven't really had bad food at a wedding. I mean... I mean, I really... I can't think of it like where I ate it and I was like, oh, this is the worst thing ever. Right. Mostly because there's a lot of alcohol being consumed. True. True. And the bubbly and... Right. No. The aperitifs.

[00:29:31] And the dancing. The dancing. It takes up a lot of time. You... Here's one thing. I... I... I hate... I mean, capital H-A-T-E. The lack of manners. Everybody has just become a savage. I mean... I agree. It's awful. I used to just call it inconsideration. It's awful. It's beyond... A lot of it's beyond that now. It's because people are too lazy to teach their kids any sort of manners. Mm-hmm. Any sort of manners.

[00:30:00] Please, thank you. How are you? Any of that. While demanding, quote, respect from everybody else. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah. It really is. I mean, it... I blame COVID. Oh, no. It's... And sexism and racism. I blame Obama. Okay. I don't blame Obama. Well, no. I was just going with Joe Biden's blames. I'm going... All right. Brett Wernibull, stick around because he's coming up next and I'm going to hang around with him too.

[00:30:31] All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepeatcalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.