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Speaker 3: So the news breaking not long ago that the City
Speaker 3: of Cincinnati is paying a local law firm, Frost Brown
Speaker 3: Todd forty k to investigate police Terry Thigi's performance after
Speaker 3: they fired her. Normally, you investigate the performance. Go okay,
Speaker 3: they got to go. This is completely backwards, and they
Speaker 3: expect the law firm to be finished by the end
Speaker 3: of the year. So it's going to cost us forty
Speaker 3: grand and the city is still shelling out the full
Speaker 3: salary and benefits to Terry Thiji of in excess of
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand dollars. Because of this nonsense, she hired
Speaker 3: her own employment lawyer, Stephen m and he has no
Speaker 3: intention of allowing her to resign because she said there's
Speaker 3: nothing negative thirty five years on the job to the
Speaker 3: date when she was moved. Thirty five years, nothing significant,
Speaker 3: nothing minor. In her jacket, pretty exemplary thirty five year
Speaker 3: law career that she's had, so why now. And also
Speaker 3: there's some developing news overnight regarding the scope of the
Speaker 3: investigation what the law firm is going to look for.
Speaker 2: Specifically.
Speaker 3: Joining the show is attorney Jason Philibaum, who's been around
Speaker 3: the block a few times. Jason, welcome, how are you.
Speaker 1: Good morning? Thank you doing well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this whole thing right away, it just just screams
Speaker 3: like wrongful dismissal in a sense, because before we get
Speaker 3: into the intricacies of at Jason phillibm I look at
Speaker 3: this and go, Okay, I've been on the job for
Speaker 3: thirty five years, and on my thirty fifth anniversary, I
Speaker 3: get noticed that I'm now on paid administratively, if I'm
Speaker 3: in Denver, Colorado, I get summoned back from this conference
Speaker 3: to Cincinnati because I'm probably gonna get fired. And she
Speaker 3: wasn't technically fired. She's on paid leave, and it wasn't
Speaker 3: because of something happened. I mean the Fountain Square issue.
Speaker 3: It happened days a couple of days after she left
Speaker 3: for Denver, so nothing new was going on here. And
Speaker 3: then furthermore, they come in and go, Okay, we're going
Speaker 3: to put you on leave. We're going to name an
Speaker 3: interim chief. By the way, not a temporary position, but
Speaker 3: interim generally means between the past into the future. If
Speaker 3: it was someone let's say that God forbid she were sick,
Speaker 3: there would be someone temporarily there, right, So that would
Speaker 3: be someone who is not an interim chief. There'd be
Speaker 3: another adjunctive for that, it'd be acting chief. And so
Speaker 3: they even chose the words incorrectly here. If you're not fired,
Speaker 3: she's not fired, then why I have an interim chief?
Speaker 3: Does that not help the legal case against the city
Speaker 3: from Terry Thiji, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I think this looks like a witch hut. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of this guy that had one hundred arrows in
Speaker 1: the side of his barn and he would ask how
Speaker 1: he did it, and he said, it was easy. I
Speaker 1: shoot an arrow into the side of the barn, and
Speaker 1: then I go ahead and paint the bull's eye around it.
Speaker 1: And you know what I think you have here is
Speaker 1: you have a situation where you know they want her gone.
Speaker 1: I mean that's clear. And instead of just terminating her
Speaker 1: and worrying about whether they have to pay out a
Speaker 1: contract or not, they then hire a law firm, you know,
Speaker 1: approximately one hundred to one hundred and twenty hours of
Speaker 1: work to essentially investigate her. And you know, I can
Speaker 1: tell you, you know, being around the block. As you say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you start investigating someone that has thirty
Speaker 1: five years of experience, you know, you may not find
Speaker 1: something illegal. But I'm pretty sure you're going to find
Speaker 1: some policy that's been broken that everybody breaks, and then
Speaker 1: that's going to be their linch pin. But it sounds
Speaker 1: to me like there's some issues in Cincinnati and they're
Speaker 1: using her as escapegoat.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not easy to dismissible gig.
Speaker 3: Well, we investigated and we found this in your jacket,
Speaker 3: which should be you know, essentially it's already something that's
Speaker 3: known but didn't rise the level of termination. As matter
Speaker 3: of fact, the argument from Steve and m would be, well,
Speaker 3: not only did you know this because it's part of
Speaker 3: you also promoted her in rank to the chief of police,
Speaker 3: so you're complicit in this whole thing. You're fining her
Speaker 3: for something you had no problem that she did at
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 2: You can't that's you do that. I mean that that's
Speaker 2: going to cost the money, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the that's the process I think they're
Speaker 1: they're going down here that I'm not sure is going
Speaker 1: to be wise what they're trying to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: they want or gone. Like you said, they even use
Speaker 1: the word interim, so she's gone, she's not going to resign,
Speaker 1: and so they're going to want a terminator. Now in Ohio,
Speaker 1: we're in at will state, so you can terminate someone
Speaker 1: as long as it's not based on some you know,
Speaker 1: illegal reason, race, gender, national origin, et cetera. But she
Speaker 1: is probably under a contract. So if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then they can only terminate her from that contract for
Speaker 1: just cause there's got to be a good reason why.
Speaker 1: And it could be policy, you know, some type of
Speaker 1: policy being broken. Obviously, it could be something illegal, or
Speaker 1: it could just be mismanagement of the you know, the city.
Speaker 1: So those are things that they're going to be looking for.
Speaker 1: And you know, the the issue with that too is,
Speaker 1: you know, we do know that crime is up, and
Speaker 1: we know that violent crime is up. But her Herney
Speaker 1: said the other day that she's offered to sit down
Speaker 1: with the mayor and the judges to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: these these bonds that are being given because that could
Speaker 1: be one situation that why crime is up is essentially
Speaker 1: if someone gets arrested for a violent crime and is
Speaker 1: back out on the street, you know, a few days later,
Speaker 1: you know crime is not going to go away, and
Speaker 1: and it looks like, you know, an election year, you're
Speaker 1: now having a situation where the that's let's get rid
Speaker 1: of the police chief, and that's why there's all these
Speaker 1: problems going on in Cincinnati instead of may be you know, leadership.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have to be a political analysis
Speaker 3: supple political mind like a like a Willie Conningham, James
Speaker 3: Carvill or something that right where they for the regular voter,
Speaker 3: for the rank and file or the typical constituent, they
Speaker 3: see this, they see right through it. I think every
Speaker 3: man and woman who doesn't have a jurisd doctorate is
Speaker 3: not educated in law like like you are. Jason Phillibaum.
Speaker 3: I mean I look at him and go, they're doing
Speaker 3: a dirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's what a lot of people
Speaker 1: are thinking. Now. You know, play Devil's Advocate for a second.
Speaker 1: You know, crime is up. We talked about that. Is
Speaker 1: there something she should have been doing that she's not?
Speaker 1: I mean, is she not, you know, putting the police
Speaker 1: in the right position, or her subordinates telling her that,
Speaker 1: you know, you should you should put police here, you
Speaker 1: should maybe do some kind of burst here, and then
Speaker 1: she just decides she's not doing that, and as a result,
Speaker 1: you have this issue on Fountain Square, you have these
Speaker 1: other issues. Now that might be a legitimate thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's something we don't know. Again just playing
Speaker 1: Devil's advocate, But even if you look at what her
Speaker 1: attorney said, is the FOP I think is backing her.
Speaker 1: So I would think that if her subordinates were telling
Speaker 1: her to do things and she was just flat out
Speaker 1: ignoring them, I'm not sure that they would have that
Speaker 1: backing that she has now.
Speaker 3: He is attorney Jason Phillibaum, the very latest involving Terry
Speaker 3: Terry Thigi. Now we're hiring a law from a local
Speaker 3: law from Frost Brown Time, pretty good firm that they're
Speaker 3: going to do some deep diving and try and find
Speaker 3: out the reasons why they fired her before. Yeah, as
Speaker 3: you said, you know, this is shoot first, asked questions later.
Speaker 3: I guess the Inquirer came out with this this morning.
Speaker 3: The scope of the investigation This is what the lawyers,
Speaker 3: the team for the city outside council is going to investigate.
Speaker 3: And now are there are four prongs to this thing.
Speaker 3: Is she an effective leader and manager of the department,
Speaker 3: including personnel and resources? Is she a leader within the
Speaker 3: context of city government, meaning does she further the broader
Speaker 3: goals and objectives of the administration. Has she committed any
Speaker 3: infraction or positive evolution while serving as police chief? And
Speaker 3: did she disregard best practices in the running a CPD
Speaker 3: to the detriment of detriment of public safety and crime prevention. Well,
Speaker 3: let's start with the first one. Is she an effective
Speaker 3: leader and manager of the department including personnel and resources.
Speaker 3: That seems like an open ended question, like if there
Speaker 3: were problems with her management personnel that the previous chief
Speaker 3: notoriously had issues with that when I guess before Craig
Speaker 3: notoriosly I had problems with that too and it was
Speaker 3: public so but believing or heard of that at chiuth Tiji,
Speaker 3: you know, the rank and file were really split on it,
Speaker 3: really didn't care for her all that much. But once
Speaker 3: they did what they did to her, they realized they
Speaker 3: could come next. And now everyone, even her detractors are supporters,
Speaker 3: so they rallied them. So to look at this and say,
Speaker 3: is she an effective leader or manager? You can say
Speaker 3: that of any boss, can't you?
Speaker 1: Right? Exactly? And I call that fuzzy math. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the law school exam where it depends on who's
Speaker 1: paying me. That's the answer I give you. Know you're
Speaker 1: paying me on this one side, I tell you why
Speaker 1: she's an effective leader. If you're paying me on the
Speaker 1: other side, I'll give you all the reasons why she's not.
Speaker 1: I mean that's again, I don't think that's what this
Speaker 1: is going to fall down on, because again, like you
Speaker 1: said that, it's so vague, it's so fuzzy that you know,
Speaker 1: if they want to decide that she's not a good leader,
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're going to find reasons to justify that,
Speaker 1: just like if you want to find that she's a
Speaker 1: good leader, you'd find the reason. And so you know
Speaker 1: the first two that you mentioned, those prongs that those
Speaker 1: both are very fuzzy math, fuzzy sort of law school
Speaker 1: exams where anyone can answer anything. I think the crux
Speaker 1: is going to be number three, which is is there
Speaker 1: an infraction? You know, is there something that she did
Speaker 1: that she not follow a policy. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any allegation of criminal wrongdoing, So it's going to be
Speaker 1: something something you know, so minor that and that's where
Speaker 1: she's going to then get into court and say, look,
Speaker 1: other people have done, you know, other people forgot to
Speaker 1: call in on day that they were taking off and
Speaker 1: they were allowed to stay. But I'm getting fired things
Speaker 1: like that. And then of course number four, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's I think the one that's a little bit
Speaker 1: more serious. You know, there's a problem in Cincinnati with crime.
Speaker 1: Whose fault is it? Is it the mayor's is it
Speaker 1: the judges? Is it the police chief? You know? Is
Speaker 1: it society? I mean, what's the problem? And I think
Speaker 1: it'd be interesting to see if there's something that she
Speaker 1: should be doing or something like you said, best practices
Speaker 1: that she didn't do. That would be the one that
Speaker 1: would you know, sell me yes or no, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the other three prongs that you know, they can
Speaker 1: find out of anybody. Well.
Speaker 3: Jason Philibel, Attorney at law, relative to the four pillars
Speaker 3: of this investigation by outside Council for the City of
Speaker 3: Cincinnati to towards Terry Thiji. You mentioned number three as
Speaker 3: she's committed any infraction policy violation while serving as a
Speaker 3: police chief. If she had, and it rose to the
Speaker 3: level of an impeachable offense, wouldn't we have heard that?
Speaker 3: I mean, typically, you know, when someone commits a crime.
Speaker 3: Let's look at what happened with the NBA recently. What
Speaker 3: happened was Cashptel. The FBI held a press conff. They
Speaker 3: had the evidence, they made the charge that Okay, here's
Speaker 3: we're coming at these individuals. We're going after Chauncey Belips,
Speaker 3: are going after other individuals because this is the evidence.
Speaker 2: We have in this case.
Speaker 3: They're going, well, it'd be like them going, yeah, well
Speaker 3: we're suspending Chauncey Bellops and now we're going to do
Speaker 3: an investigation to find out what he did wrong. That's
Speaker 3: the problem with this is that if you in any
Speaker 3: other case, with due process, and I think it applies
Speaker 3: here to a degree, then if you committed an infraction,
Speaker 3: you make those charges allegations, you suspend them all, you
Speaker 3: investigate the scope and the depth, and then eventually you
Speaker 3: terminate that person because now you've gathered the evidence.
Speaker 2: This is completely the opposite.
Speaker 1: Of that right. And that's why I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people look at this and say that's not fair.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't arrest somebody and say, go find
Speaker 1: me a crime. The crimes committed, then you arrest them,
Speaker 1: and then you either investigate further or prove or disprove
Speaker 1: that it happened. What's not fair is to essentially take
Speaker 1: someone out of a position and look for something that
Speaker 1: they did wrong. And you know, I would think, you know,
Speaker 1: if they did something wrong, you wouldn't have the city
Speaker 1: manager talking about what a great thirty five years and
Speaker 1: what a great person this is and we wish you
Speaker 1: the best. I think I think that was the statement
Speaker 1: when they put her on leave, is you know, what
Speaker 1: a great stellar career. If there's truly an infraction worthy
Speaker 1: of dismissal, that's not the statement you put out there.
Speaker 1: So that tells me they probably don't know if there's one,
Speaker 1: and they're now looking for one so they can hang
Speaker 1: their hat on it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, our tires at nineteen ninety eight, we're touching a
Speaker 3: handicapped spot. Accidentally, she didn't close the cover before striking.
Speaker 3: When she was trying to light a candle. Some matches
Speaker 3: and she tore the mattress tag off of her ceiling.
Speaker 3: Those don't rise to levels the reason you get fired
Speaker 3: because everyone does that.
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly, and that's what they're that's what they're
Speaker 1: looking for now again so they can find it for cause.
Speaker 1: Now I think again the legitimate, legitimate investigation would be
Speaker 1: number four. But again that's not something that I would
Speaker 1: do post termination or in this case just suspension. Is
Speaker 1: what is she doing wrong? Why is the city? You know,
Speaker 1: and maybe maybe that's a good investigation, you know, find
Speaker 1: tell me why Cincinnati crime is going up? And see
Speaker 1: if we but to sit there and take the police
Speaker 1: chief out and then do that investigation. That seems again
Speaker 1: putting a little bit of the cart before the horse.
Speaker 3: Well it seems like, you know, they're turning under a stone,
Speaker 3: the stone over. But when they kicked the stone, a
Speaker 3: lot of things are going to run. I wonder how
Speaker 3: much of those those bugs come back to bite after
Speaker 3: a pureval Because two and four of this four pillar
Speaker 3: investigation by Brown Frost Todd is she too? Is is
Speaker 3: she a leader within the context of city government, meaning
Speaker 3: furthering the broader goals and objects of the city administration.
Speaker 3: Number four is did she regard best practices in the
Speaker 3: running of CPD. I don't know if that's just best
Speaker 3: practices by police standards and no pot of standards or
Speaker 3: best practices is set forth by number two the administration.
Speaker 3: Because that's the sticky part is when she interviewed for
Speaker 3: this job three years ago, Jason Philamama was looking at
Speaker 3: some of the interviews she did. She said her biggest
Speaker 3: priority was to continued diversity, equity and inclusion within the
Speaker 3: Cincinnati Police Department, how to lift people up. And she
Speaker 3: also had to get the blessing and interview essentially with
Speaker 3: Iris Rawley, who we've seen in recent time investigated and
Speaker 3: get herself involved between a suspect a subject who was
Speaker 3: being arrested for violating probation and was essentially interfering with
Speaker 3: the business of a police officer. She had an interview
Speaker 3: with her to get this job in the first place.
Speaker 3: So when I hear that and then see what's happened
Speaker 3: with owner cognisance people cutting their ankle monitor off and
Speaker 3: there's no repercussion from the court for that essentially doing
Speaker 3: what they say they weren't going to do. Literally within
Speaker 3: minutes of leaving, the people who have been jammed up
Speaker 3: and all this high profile violence saved. Maybe the brawl,
Speaker 3: there's other factors in there, and now that was handled
Speaker 3: as a nightmare. That wasn't on the chief, but everything
Speaker 3: else was. Like people who had violent prior criminal offenses
Speaker 3: that were precluded from having a gun because they're under
Speaker 3: disability by law. It's not her to set those policies.
Speaker 3: That's on the mayor. So they're doing this investigation. I
Speaker 3: wonder how much of this is going to come back
Speaker 3: and implicate after that peer volunteer.
Speaker 1: Long, Yeah, I agree, And if you look at I
Speaker 1: think the mayor put out a statement. He put out
Speaker 1: a statement that he had nothing to do with his firing. Again,
Speaker 1: I find that to be maybe a little disingenuous, because
Speaker 1: why in the world with a city manager three weeks
Speaker 1: before an election terminate your female police jeep without talking
Speaker 1: to the mayor. That would be a very dumb move.
Speaker 1: So I would think that there was a discussion ahead
Speaker 1: of time. But like you said, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: factors to consider. You know, is she pushing DEI and
Speaker 1: that's why there's not enough police on the street. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's a legitimate decision to you know, talk about whether
Speaker 1: that's the appropriate way to handle policing. You know, but
Speaker 1: recently the city also engaged in a federal settlement where
Speaker 1: they are changing the way they're policing. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that could be a very real reason for why things
Speaker 1: are going up, you know, having bonds, Like you said,
Speaker 1: someone that commits a violent crime and has let out
Speaker 1: the next day that that's the that's not the police
Speaker 1: an issue. That's not on her exactly.
Speaker 3: I could see when she's falsifying reports and people aren't
Speaker 3: showing up, and she's backdating payroll. I mean, those are
Speaker 3: the things you're definitely going to get you and you
Speaker 3: should get you fired. But essentially the vision by this
Speaker 3: administration is criminals are victims too, has led us to
Speaker 3: this point. That's not on Terry Thiji. That's on the
Speaker 3: people who hire Terry Thiji.
Speaker 1: Exactly. As I said at the beginning of this talk,
Speaker 1: it sounds to me like a skapegoat. It sounds to
Speaker 1: me like, you know, we're two weeks out from an
Speaker 1: election and I've got to tell the people that there's
Speaker 1: a problem, and I fixed the problem. And now by
Speaker 1: the way, that's hired these really good attorneys to go
Speaker 1: in there and find out what the problem was, and
Speaker 1: then I can match it up and say, hey did
Speaker 1: a good job, which of course won't come out until
Speaker 1: after the election anyway, It's going to take two three
Speaker 1: months to do a thorough investigation whether it's legitimate or
Speaker 1: whether it's brought up after the facts, So I don't
Speaker 1: think we're going to know anything. You'll probably januinely after
Speaker 1: the election.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's what this is about, buying some time
Speaker 3: for the election, but it really doesn't because it makes
Speaker 3: them looking competent and stupid, and not the first time either.
Speaker 3: I would also add this finally, Jason Philibauma attorney at law,
Speaker 3: if you're representing, if you're on team Fiji, are your
Speaker 3: eyes now glazing over with the millions and million dollars
Speaker 3: should possibly be getting it because quite honestly, the way
Speaker 3: this whole thing was executed, it's seemingly, in addition to
Speaker 3: the two hundred K she's making, could wind up getting
Speaker 3: a help of payout to sign a non disclosure agreement
Speaker 3: because if she doesn't sign an NDA, theyn't force an NDAU,
Speaker 3: then then she can roll over on this administration and
Speaker 3: really let the go seut and they don't want that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, her attorney's firm is well known for suing
Speaker 1: cities and municipalities and going after them, and then you know,
Speaker 1: that's an a lot of expensive lawsuits and if they
Speaker 1: if they end up getting, you know, something that they
Speaker 1: can hang their hat on, then you've got attorney fees
Speaker 1: in play. And that's a pretty penny that the Cincinnati
Speaker 1: have to pay out. So yeah, there's there's My guess
Speaker 1: is there's going to be a settlement some way through
Speaker 1: the process, because otherwise it's going to be expensive for somebody.
Speaker 3: If the finny law firm or like the Bengals defense,
Speaker 3: we wouldn't be having conversations about not making the playoffs
Speaker 3: and firing coaches, if you know what I mean, because
Speaker 3: they are tenacious. If anything, he is attorney Jason Phillibaum
Speaker 3: a private practice of course, attorney himself, just kind of
Speaker 3: a different view, a different set of eyes on this
Speaker 3: issue right now because it doesn't pass my sniff test,
Speaker 3: and it certainly doesn't pass Jason's either. Jason all the best, buddy,
Speaker 3: thanks for jumping on this morning.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thank you Over at.
Speaker 3: Jonas and Philibaum, Thanks again, quick time out, we'll get
Speaker 3: a news update and the controversy that they wish we're
Speaker 3: kind of I hate when, like, we've got enough controversy
Speaker 3: in the world. What is controversial about what's happening at
Speaker 3: the White House relative to the East Wing? Because it
Speaker 3: feels like people are pushing this narrative like we should
Speaker 3: be all worked up into a froth about this, and
Speaker 3: I just maybe it's just me. I don't see it,
Speaker 3: and I'll tell you why next seven hundred WLW