Coming Sunday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examines the saga of Georgia’s beleaguered ethics commission and the role of Gov. Nathan Deal. The AJC looks at the roots of the commission’s problems, which began some five years ago.
A Fulton County judge on Friday denied the state’s attempt to quash the whistle-blower lawsuit in which the former state ethics commission director says she was forced from her job for investigating Gov. Nathan Deal’s campaign.
Judge Ural Glanville said in an order filed late Friday that there are “genuine issues of material fact” that must be resolved by a jury at trial.
Stacey Kalberman sued her former employer after she says she was forced from her job in 2011 while pursuing ethics complaints against Deal’s 2010 bid for governor. Shortly after presenting draft subpoenas to the commission, the panel voted to slash her salary by 30 percent and to eliminate her deputy’s position altogether. That deputy, Sherilyn Streicker, has filed a separate lawsuit.
Glanville said there are serious disputes about whether Kalberman’s work on the Deal case was connected to the commission’s effort to cut her salary. There are similar questions about whether the commission’s decision to reduce her pay was “a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for the purported adverse employment action” or occurred independent of her probe.
Kalberman’s trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 14, but her attorney, Kim Worth, is preparing a motion for a continuance. Kalberman had surgery Wednesday and is under a doctor’s orders not to travel from her home in Nasvhille, Tenn., for at least two weeks.
Meanwhile, Streicker’s trial, which had been scheduled to begin this week, was put on hold until at least April. Constance Russell, the judge in the Streicker case, also agreed Friday to rule on the state’s motion to bar Streicker’s attorneys from forcing Deal to testify. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this week that Deal, two top aides and his private attorney have all received subpoenas as potential witnesses in the case.
Kalberman and Streicker had been investigating a series of accusations that Deal financially benefited from campaign expenditures, that he improperly used a campaign account to pay legal fees and that he improperly reported some expenditures on his disclosures.
Deal was cleared of major ethics charges in 2012 and agreed to pay $3,350 in fees for technical defects in his campaign finance reports.
