A former Montgomery police officer claims in a filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that he was fired because he rejected sexual advances from the police chief, but inside the Montgomery Police Department obtained by APR. The documents raise questions about the timeline of the charges and when city officials knew about them. her complaint.
Many of these documents were included in the personnel file of Rene Helton, a former police officer who was formally fired in November and filed an EEOC complaint in August.
In addition to raising questions about the dates, the documents, most of which came from an investigation over the past two years into Helton's on-the-job conduct, also found that Helton twice made false allegations. It was also revealed that he had made six false claims in total. superiors. The nature of Helton's allegations was not disclosed in the documents, but department officials said her allegations did not involve sexual misconduct.
Attempts to contact Helton through attorney Mickey McDermott were unsuccessful. APR provided several specific questions to Mr. McDermott regarding the information contained in Mr. Helton's personnel file and other documents obtained by APR, but Mr. McDermott was not available for comment or interview prior to publication.
In media interviews over the past three days, Mr. Helton and Mr. McDermott presented damning evidence of sexual advances, including explicit text messages and photos, by Police Chief Darryl Albert. In response to these allegations and the EEOC report filed by Helton, the city opened an investigation into the allegations through the Office of Inspector General, according to a person familiar with the ongoing investigation.
However, Mr. Helton was fired for resisting Mr. Albert's advances, and several people within the police department and City Hall responded to further claims that city officials “were notified in August and did nothing.” is receiving backlash. Helton was already under investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department in several cases when he first went public with the initial accusations against Albert in August, according to multiple sources who provided APR with documents supporting their claims. That's what it means.
“No one is saying that her claims that[Albert]sent her inappropriate messages are not true. These matters are still under investigation, and she has no responsibility to do so.” There's a lot of evidence.” She requested anonymity due to ongoing litigation. “But those things have nothing to do with why she was fired. It's just a fact.”
Additionally, Mr. Helton suggested in a radio interview that he was fired in response to a complaint to the EEOC. That would have been impossible. The city first received notice in early August that Helton intended to file an EEOC complaint. Mr. Helton was notified in June that he would be terminated. This notice was included in his termination letter, which Mr. Helton signed.
Her firing was the culmination of multiple investigations, according to documents reviewed by APR.
According to documents provided to APR, Helton was first investigated in March 2022 over complaints from citizens that he acted unprofessionally and refused to provide assistance while on duty. Both allegations were deemed “proven.”
Helton was then accused of making multiple false allegations against multiple superiors in March 2023 after an anonymous complaint and another citizen's complaint against her were deemed “unfounded,” according to documents. Charged. A month-long investigation revealed that she had filed false claims in all five cases.
Helton filed a harassment complaint against a Metropolitan Police Department lieutenant in late March, according to documents. The complaint was ultimately deemed “unfounded.”
In June, she filed a separate complaint alleging five “supervisory policy violations” against six different Metropolitan Police Department superiors. One count is “proven,” but four counts are “not proven.”
All of this was before she notified city officials, including Mayor Stephen Reed, of Albert's sexual advances and alleged discrimination in early August. Sources familiar with the situation told APR that the first notice of Helton's allegations came in the form of a letter sent by her attorney at the time, which included a letter stating that Helton had not yet filed an EEOC complaint. He said it was written that there was no such thing.
In fact, Reed's chief of staff, Chip Hill, told APR that Reed first learned that the EEOC charges had been filed when the city attorney notified Hill on Monday of this week. I admitted that it was. Hill declined to answer additional questions on the matter, citing the pending litigation.
According to a copy of the August letter provided to APR, attorney Ronnie Williams told city officials, generally speaking, that Mr. Albert had attempted to engage in sexual relations with Mr. Helton and that Mr. Helton had rejected his advances. He is shown to have communicated that he believed he was fired in part because of what he had done. However, the letter also states that Mr. Helton did not make the allegations public and that Mr. Williams “advised Officer Helton early on that it may be prudent to make them less public.”
Sources told APR that the letter was reviewed by the city attorney who worked with Williams, and the matter was forwarded to the Montgomery City Inspector General for investigation. A formal investigation was launched in October.
