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