Roby’s attorney says firing stems from mayor’s ‘old political vendetta’

NC GAZETTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT

Wednesday, June 1, 2016, 11 p.m. — Tom Roby, the Bardstown Police officer who was fired Tuesday for allegedly destroying police documents, was simply doing what his chief had given him authorization to do — clean out his desk.

TOM ROBY

In an interview with WDRB 41 News, Bardstown attorney Keith Sparks said Roby had gotten the approval of Chief Rick McCubbin to clear out his desk.

“He placed old duplicate copies, his own personal files, some unopened files into the shredding box,” Sparks told WDRB.

Roby was one of the officers demoted as part of Mayor John Royalty’s police department restructuring. Sparks said it was “heinous” that the city fired Roby in the last weeks of his employment and accused him of a felony.

Sparks also said the allegations are related to what he called an “old political vendetta” that goes back to the days when Roby and Royalty were both Bardstown Police officers. The firing also comes weeks after Spark’s law firm began investigating possible legal action related to Roby’s demotion.

“We gave notice to the city in May of our request for open records relating to the unlawful demotion of Tom Roby that happened in April. Two weeks later, he’s in front of the mayor being accused of committing a felony because he cleaned out his desk,” Sparks told WDRB.

FORMER CHIEF WEIGHS IN VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. Former Bardstown Police Chief commented on Roby’s firing while away on vacation, stating via social media that he agreed with Sparks’ assessment of the allegations. McCubbin posted a link to the WDRB story about the firing, which includes an on-camera interview with Sparks.

“Watching the continued insanity of a small handful who are still faltering to justify an uninformed, uneducated, leaderless, and destructive maneuver, I am sitting here shaking my head at the situation from hundreds of miles away,” McCubbin wrote.

“I find so much of what has happened suspect at best. Whatever the claims, I can tell you what was not destroyed: the Internal Affairs files that were turned in to the city by me,” he wrote.

“At the rate they’re going, I assume before long we’ll all be charged with starting the Great Chicago Fire and withholding information on the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.”

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