Kentucky’s ex-corrections chief files lawsuit, reveals investigation he says got him fired
The former commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Corrections filed a lawsuit against the state over his firing last month, claiming the state’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet retaliated against him.
James Erwin claims in the lawsuit that he was fired because he refused to fire two black employees and complained about mismanagement in the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet’s Internal Investigations Bureau.
Erwin filed the suit in Oldham Circuit Court Feb. 21.
Erwin and Operations Director Chris Kleymeyer were both dismissed without further cabinet comment Feb. 8.
In the lawsuit, Erwin says that in January, the cabinet’s leadership told him “to terminate the employment of two black Department of Corrections employees based on” investigations conducted by the Internal Investigations Bureau.
But Erwin refused, because of “concerns ... about the deficient work product of the IIB and in particular the corresponding investigations of these two employees.” He says he told the cabinet that firing the employees “based on these deficient investigations” would deprive them of due process and would be mismanagement and abuse of authority.
He claims that in a Jan. 28 meeting, Justice Cabinet Secretary John Tilley told him to fire the employees anyway, and if the employees filed a lawsuit and won, the cabinet “could explain the legal losses as a result of a weak personnel system.”
The Justice and Public Safety Cabinet issued a statement to WKYT Monday, saying the “false claims are an obvious attempt to distract from the wrongdoing that occurred under Mr. Erwin’s command” and said “we will have much more to share regarding this situation very soon.”
The cabinet told the television station that the corrections employees mentioned in Erwin’s lawsuit are still on “investigative leave.”
Erwin is asking for damages and to be reinstated to his former position, which he had held since May 2017. He has had a long career in corrections.
This story was originally published March 5, 2019 at 4:41 PM.
