"We're going to file a lawsuit against the city for firing the officers," James Moore, an Oklahoma City attorney representing fired officers Jeremy Day and Jerry Foley, said. He noted that the mayor will also be included in the lawsuit "because he was personally involved."
Moore said he did not want to reveal the details of the planned suit, but said they believe the town violated several laws in the way they treated the two officers. Moore said he planned to have the case filed in federal court in Muskogee within the next several weeks.
Keith Wasson, town administrator, said the lawsuit is Day and Foley's right to do, but he noted he has not seen anything filed and doesn't know what the basis of the suit will be.
"Once it's filed, we'll go from there," Wasson said.
Wasson said he is presuming that the town's attorney, John Robert Montgomery of Sallisaw, will represent the town in the matter. When the suit is filed, whether Montgomery or another attorney will handle the case will be addressed.
At a special town council meeting on Jan. 7, Day and Foley appealed their terminations, but the board voted three to two that Day and Foley's employment should remain terminated.
The officers were fired in November after Mayor Monty Lenington received a written complaint from some people in the community about being cursed out and their lives threatened by an officer after the Nov. 13 town council meeting, officials said in November.
Lenington later dismissed Officer Jerry Foley and Sgt. Jeremy Day without taking the matter to a vote of the town council, after Lenington found that Day had allegedly been abusing the town's medical leave policy. Foley said after the firings that the reason he was given for being fired related to using profane and abusive language. Foley said his termination letter stated that he was intimidating a citizen while on duty.
The abusive language to which the letter referred involved an alleged exchange of words between Foley and Lenington's grandfather after a Nov. 13 town council meeting.
