WATE’s John Haney is hot on the story of the just released “Tyler Harber Investigation” by the Knox County Sheriff’s Department:

The report also makes an inference that Mayor Ragsdale made a false report.

It says the mayor was aware that Harber had illegally obtained e-mails of then Knox County Republican chairman Chad Tindell, and as a result, “If Ragsdale’s intent in issuing the false statement was to protect Tyler Harber, then Ragsdale was obstructing or hindering, at that time, the location of a person suspected of commiting a crime.”

Randy Neal over at KnoxViews is typically up to date and following the story closely. #9 has posted a video of Channel 6’s coverage at KnoxViews on this post, right here.

While the Sentinel, true to form, has continued to focus in on Tyler Harber the employee, the much larger issues regard County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and his Chief of Staff Mike Arms. Did they cover up? Did they violate budget laws?

There are many questions to be asked following a cursory glance at this report, especially questions to be asked by County Commission.

One obvious note of interest to me is that Commissioner Mike Hammond, who has been opposed to efforts to initiate a Commission investigation regarding possible misappropriation of funds and/or policy violations, is mentioned in the report.

On page 9 the report states:

However, Harber’s Knox County computer had many documents related to various political campaigns he was involved in and for which he was charging various fees. For example, there were thirteen separate invoices to Mike Hammond, all but one of which was generated on a week day between the hours of 8:00 am and 12:40 pm. The one invoice outside of this time frame was generated at 7:39 one week day evening, an invoice for $2200.00, probably was worth working late that night.

Another suspect issue regards the payment of $4,000 to an assistant to Mike Ragsdale, Rebecca Hargrove Smith, to what appears to be a “go away and be quiet” transaction. The payment involved a signed document titled “Release of All Claims” that acknowledges an agreement that stipulates for the receipt of $4,000 dollars that Ms. Smith will agree to release Knox County from all federal or state causes of action.

The document is signed by Smith and Mike Arms and notarized by Alice Long.

From page 10 the report reads:

It appears that Rebecca Smith was paid $4,000 of taxpayers’ money for purely political reasons.

Mike Arms, in his statement on March 14, 2005, stated that Rebecca Smith was involved in a drunk driving crash in Loudon County, Tennessee. As he stated, “we got a call at three in the morning…she had been drinking…had a wreck…she was in the Loudon County Jail…so we went down, helped get her out and called Jerry (Hargrove)…a State Senator and a chairman you know…” Following that incident, Rebecca “quit coming to work…her attendance record was sort of like Fescher’s was on Probation/Pretrial.”

Despite the belief that Rebecca Smith needed to be terminated for cause, Rebecca Smith was paid $4,000 upon the termination of her employment with the mayor’s office because, as explained by Arms, “I mean it was one of those…you’re calling your state senator saying we’re terminating your daughter.”

(NOTE: For the record, Arms was incorrect regarding Hargrove. Jere Hargrove was a State Representative (Democrat) who is no longer serving in the legislature. Errors above are solely attributed to transcripts from the report of statements made by Arms.)
Were Ragsdale and Arms acting within their authority to authorize such a payment? It is a legitimate question to be asked by County Commission.

Obviously, more in this report is developing…including whether Mayor Ragsdale had knowledge of wrongdoing by Tyler Harber and covered it up…