Fort Worth officials ask for more time producing documents in fired police chief case
Fort Worth city officials asked a judge for more time to prepare certain records before the attorney for fired Fort Worth police chief Joel Fitzgerald questions city employees.
Associate Judge Monica Purdy signed an order Thursday stating that Fitzgerald’s lawyer, Stephen Kennedy, can depose Fort Worth City Manager David Cooke, Assistant City Manager Jay Chapa and Manny Ramirez, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, for questioning.
Fitzgerald is seeking reinstatement to his former position and claims his firing was in retaliation for conducting an investigation into city corruption.
Purdy ordered the depositions of Cooke, Chapa and Ramirez should take place within five days and that certain relevant documents to the case should be produced before the date of the depositions.
The deadline for the city to produce those documents is Sept. 5.
On Friday, the city filed an emergency appeal to the judge, saying employees needed more time to fulfill the 19 document requests ordered by the judge. The requests include employee emails and text messages that mention Fitzgerald, employee emails sent to specific members of the media and Fitzgerald’s entire email account.
Searching for Fitzgerald’s name in every city employee’s email alone would take more than 8,966 employee hours, the city said in the appeal.
Fitzgerald said in a motion filed on Aug. 21 that the city ignored instructions from the court to deliver city officials for questioning and to produce evidence in the case, even though the two parties had agreed to exchange evidence.
Fitzgerald alleges that the city has previously destroyed evidence important to his case in the form of instant messages that were transmitted between two employees working in the city’s information technology department.
Fitzgerald filed a whistleblower lawsuit after he was terminated in May. Fitzgerald claims that he was fired because he was conducting an investigation into compliance issues with the city’s crime reporting systems