Back in March Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson dismissed four top ranking officials in the Sheriff’s Department.
Three of them departed, but one, Kristen Morales has stayed in her position as chief investigator of the IT Department.
She’s even garnered a promotion.
And nobody knows why?
“Kristen Morales, two months after she was terminated and escorted out of the building, was still receiving her full salary and benefits,” Metropolitan Crime Commission head Rafael Goyeneche states. “[It’s] as if she was in charge of all of IT services and investigations. Paid $155,000 a year, plus benefits.”
Like many Goyeneche is scratching his head and wondering how a woman who was found guilty of misuse of Sheriff’s Department property, then lied to cover it up, then fired by the Inspector General, is still employed by the Sheriff.
“After she was fired for taking public property and being untruthful about it, and [Sheriff Susan Hutson] put her in charge of the IT services but investigations. Part of the reasons she was terminated from the IG’s office was that she was an investigator and because she was untruthful.”
After the second termination Morales sued to be re-instated, she lost.
She appealed the decision and lost.
Now, she’s the target of a lawsuit by the Inspector General’s Office to recoup more than $150,000 in attorney’s fees.
