NEW ORLEANS — Not only has one of Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson’s highest-paid assistants retained her position and salary more than two months after the sheriff dismissed her along with three other top officials, she is now being sued for substantial attorney’s fees in a long-running legal battle with her previous employer.
Assistant Sheriff Kristen Morales was hit Tuesday with a motion to recover $161,447 in expert and attorneys’ fees in her unsuccessful legal case against the New Orleans Inspector General’s Office, which fired Morales in January 2021.
The motion was filed by the IG after a federal judge issued a summary judgment against Morales in a lawsuit she filed alleging discrimination and retaliation by the office that fired her.
The IG’s office accused Morales of giving away an office cell phone without permission, then not coming clean about the giveaway.
But this latest legal salvo includes an explosive new allegation. In the 13-page motion, the IG’s office claims that “OIG discovered highly improper and sexually explicit videos and other materials on an OIG computer assigned to Plaintiff.”
In the motion, the IG’s office states that forensic auditors were hired to review Morales’ work as an investigator.
In the process, the auditors “uncovered even more improper and sexually explicit materials on the OIG computer assigned to Plaintiff and determined that they had been downloaded onto the OIG computer prior to the Plaintiff’s termination from an iPhone registered to Plaintiff.”
“Some of the materials had been transmitted from Plaintiff to another City (non-OIG) employee,” the attorneys stated in the petition.
The IG’s motion follows a string of legal setbacks for Morales, starting with her dismissal being upheld by the city’s Civil Service Commission.
She went on to file multiple appeals to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal and State Supreme Court but lost each time.
Her separate employment and civil rights claims in federal court were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon April 20, the court records show, with “each party to bear its own costs.”
Despite that split costs ruling, the IG’s office stated in its petition that it is trying to recover its expense because Morales claims are “redundant and frivolous.”
“Plaintiff knew her claims and arguments had already been rejected…yet Plaintiff sought to re-litigate them in the federal court at the expense of OIG defendants,” the IG’s attorneys wrote.
Morales’s attorney, Stephanie Dovalina, said she will vigorously oppose the IG’s attempts at getting her client to pay.
“Kristen Morales sued to protect her rights,” Dovalina said. “There is no basis for the OIG to seek the $160,000 for work on a case in which no depositions were conducted, no discovery responses were provided and no expert reports were ever produced by the OIG.”
Dovalina went on to say the IG’s actions may have a chilling effect on potential whistleblowers.
“The OIG is trying to use Kristen Morales as an example to others who may also speak out against injustice and protect their rights,” Dovalina said.
The new court filing is just the latest in a long line of controversies involving Morales, who despite her dismissal from the IG’s office, was hired by Hutson to serve as her chief of both Information Technology and Internal Affairs.
A series of scandals quickly followed – several of which were uncovered by WWL-TV – including the sheriff hiring a mediator to resolve internal disputes involving Morales, Morales, and 12 other top deputies staying at top-flight hotels while they helped provide Carnival parade security, and an accusation that Morales threw a water bottle at another top executive.
The friction came to a head on March 27 when Morales and three other top officials were dismissed.
The other three – Legal Counsel Graham Bosworth, Assistant Sheriff Pearlina Thomas and CFO David Trautenberg – left immediately, but Morales accepted an offer to stay an additional 30 days to allow for a “transition.”
That 30-day so-called transition has now passed the 60-day mark, yet Morales continues to collect her $155,000 salary despite working remotely after being banned from the Sheriff’s Office main offices next to the jail.
WWL-TV reached out to Sheriff Hutson’s office but has not received a response.
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