Cope, Steve | Testimony transcript

Transcript of the Testimony of Steve Cope

Date: December 17, 2013Volume: I

Case: In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation

Printed On: December 27, 2013

Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.Phone: 417-358-4078

Fax: 417-451-1114Email:[email protected]

Internet:

Steve Cope In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation

417-358-4078

Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.

Page 1

IN RE: JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION

TELEPHONE SWORN STATEMENT OF

STEVEN COPE

Taken on Tuesday, December 17, 2013, from 3:49 p.m. to 4:30

p.m., at the law offices of Juddson H. McPherson, LLC, 626

S. Byers, in the City of Joplin, County of Jasper, State of

Missouri, before

SHARON K. ROGERS, C.C.R.650,

a Certified Court Reporter and a Notary Public within and

for the County of Jasper, and State of Missouri.


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APPEARANCES

MR. THOMAS E. LORAINE

Loraine & Associates, LLC

4075 Osage Beach Pkwy., Suite 300

Osage Beach, MO 65065

[email protected]


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S T I P U L A T I O N

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED that this Sworn

Statement may be taken by steno-mask type recording by

SHARON K. ROGERS, a Certified Court Reporter, and

afterwards reduced into typewriting.

It is further stipulated that the signature of the

witness is hereby waived, and that said Sworn Statement of

said witness shall be of the same force and effect as

though said witness had read and signed Sworn Statement.


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I N D E X

Page/Line

DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE . . . 5-4

E X H I B I T S

Exhibit #49 . . . . . . . 24-4

Mr. Cope's notes

Note: Exhibits in separate binder

(sic) - typed as spoken

(ph.) - phonetic


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1 STEVEN COPE

2 Having been first duly sworn and examined,

3 testified as follows:

4 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE:

5 Q. Steve, would you for the record please state

6 your name?

7 A. My name is Steven Cope, C-O-P-E.

8 Q. Steve, you're the same Steven Cope that

9 worked for the City of Joplin several years

10 ago?

11 A. Yes, sir.

12 Q. And how long did you work for the City?

13 A. Seven years.

14 Q. Seven years. And you are an engineer by

15 trade?

16 A. I'm not a certified engineer, no. I was

17 trained in construction.

18 Q. So you're an engineer in training?

19 A. My GE -

20 Q. Okay. Did you actually attend college?

21 A. Yes, yes.

22 Q. What was your degree in?

23 A. Construction Science.

24 Q. Where did you work before working for Joplin?

25 A. I was a building inspector for the City of


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1 Grandview, Missouri prior to that.

2 Q. Okay. And how long did you work in that

3 capacity?

4 A. I was a building inspector there for I

5 believe it was four years.

6 Q. And that was code compliance essentially?

7 A. Yes, sir.

8 Q. So detailed knowledge of the code and some

9 engineering and some construction practice

10 would be essential to that job?

11 A. Yes, sir.

12 Q. To the extent that you were trained and

13 worked in that area what was your next job

14 after Grandview?

15 A. After Grandview I became building official

16 for the Building and Code Enforcement

17 Supervisor at the City of Joplin.

18 Q. And that was your title was Supervisor?

19 A. Yes, my title when I got there.

20 Q. Okay. How long did you work before you were

21 discharged?

22 A. I was there from December of 2005 until July

23 of 2013.

24 Q. Okay. And during that period of time who was

25 your direct supervisor?


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1 A. During that period of time I started out my

2 supervisor when I started was David Hertzberg

3 and then later on they added a layer in there

4 and it was Tim Nyander.

5 Q. Tim who?

6 A. Nyander.

7 Q. Okay. Was Tim let go at the same time you

8 were?

9 A. No, actually Tim had taken a job in Arkansas.

10 Q. Prior to your discharge?

11 A. Oh, yes, sir.

12 Q. And was that related to the problem that was

13 alleged in your division?

14 A. No, I don't think he had any - well, he was

15 gone before that even came up.

16 Q. Okay. And how long did this issue surface,

17 or I guess how long did the issue exist

18 before you were aware of a problem?

19 A. I was made aware of a problem on July 3rd of

20 2013.

21 Q. And you were discharged on what date?

22 A. Actually I wasn't discharged. I quit.

23 Q. And what date was that?

24 A. I resigned my position on July, let's see, I

25 believe it was July 26th.


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1 Q. I'm sorry, what period of time existed

2 between those two dates?

3 A. Three weeks.

4 Q. Okay. So this surfaced and you were gone in

5 three weeks?

6 A. Yes.

7 Q. And why did you quit?

8 A. Why did I quit?

9 Q. Yes, sir.

10 A. I was interviewed on July 3rd about - they

11 had asked about or they had become aware

12 there were what they considered uncollected

13 or missing funds. This was brought to my

14 attention and so they had a series of

15 questions. Of course they masked it with

16 this idea that it was just an interview of

17 processes. It wasn't. It was a witch hunt.

18 When they brought that up, started going

19 through the list of these allegations, I

20 said, well, I need to look all this up. I

21 mean you're saying that there's all this

22 bunch of money you claim is missing or

23 uncollected, and I said you're going clear

24 back to 1999 with this stuff and I wasn't

25 even working for your city at that time. So


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1 I started going back through everything and

2 in the meantime we started talking amongst

3 ourselves and I think there was obvious that

4 there was more to this than what they were

5 alluding to. So whenever they asked me to

6 come back on July 5th for an interview in

7 which they also had the Finance Director gave

8 that interview. Of course I requested that

9 my supervisor, at that time even though they

10 had hired someone David Hertzberg was still

11 my direct supervisor, and I requested that

12 they allow David to sit in on these

13 conversations and was told, no, that I

14 couldn't. I said, okay, fine. They

15 interviewed me and in that process it was

16 real clear to me that they had already

17 established a direction that they wanted to

18 take and they were using my department or my

19 division as another piece of - another nail

20 in the coffin actually trying to get to our

21 Public Works Director I felt.

22 Q. And the Public Works Director was David?

23 A. Yes, sir.

24 Q. So you were just a pawn to get there?

25 A. I believe so. Again we were able to identify


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1 many other things that they felt were being

2 mismanaged. Some of this came to light by

3 way of a report that I did not even have the

4 ability to run until late April - well, no,

5 actually I never even got that until after

6 they started the questioning. The Finance

7 Director who is responsible for revenue all

8 of this could have run that report and been

9 identifying that all along, but I just think

10 they used it as another method to try and get

11 the Public Works Director out of the picture.

12 Q. So you didn't have the ability or the

13 knowledge of how to do this report until

14 after the first interview?

15 A. I - let me see if I can get it right. In

16 April we had the training. I tried to run

17 the report. I probably - I was able to do it

18 after April, but I did not because we had so

19 many other things going on that I didn't find

20 it. And we had been doing everything the

21 same as we always had, so I didn't see this

22 as a critical thing that I had to run this

23 report right away. I did have access to it.

24 I didn't run it to really check on it until

25 July actually after the first interview.


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1 Q. So let me ask you about this training. Why

2 was the training never made available to you

3 prior to April?

4 A. Because there was never money. That's what

5 we were told by the Finance Director.

6 Q. There was no money to do it?

7 A. There was no money to bring anyone in to

8 train people, or to update it, or to attempt

9 to train them for years, the entire time I

10 was there. Every year at the budget meetings

11 we were told no travel, and training had to

12 be (inaudible) that you could get down with a

13 vehicle and back, and they just - and they

14 never did it.

15 Q. You didn't even know that this type of report

16 even could exist?

17 A. No, I absolutely did not. And what they

18 called it was a - not uncollected, but

19 outstanding fees report. I didn't know I

20 could run an outstanding fees report until we

21 had those back in April.

22 Q. And you continued doing your job as you were

23 told to do it as you came in upon your first

24 setting foot in the job at Joplin?

25 A. Yes, sir.


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1 Q. So you did not know, nor did your predecessor

2 know of this report or this training?

3 A. I kind of doubt it, because obviously wasn't

4 something I found anywhere in old files or

5 anything like that to help. They gave me the

6 same computer access I believe as my

7 predecessor, and it wasn't even one of the

8 buttons I could pick. It wasn't one of the

9 things on the reporting schedule.

10 Q. So therefore you can conclude that your

11 predecessor did not know about the existence

12 of that report, nor was he trained, because

13 you didn't know about it and were not trained

14 either in that?

15 A. That's correct. When I got there I didn't

16 get trained by somebody in my position. That

17 position had been open for awhile.

18 Q. So as a fact of the matter, were you able to

19 determine whether or not there was money

20 missing?

21 A. There was not money missing. There was fees

22 that had not been collected, and even when I

23 pointed out to them that some of the fees

24 that hadn't been collected yet were fees that

25 had been billed, and I would be happy to go


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1 ahead and track those down just like we would

2 once we knew this, and said why don't we just

3 - you know, if these haven't been billed we

4 can bill these contractors and we can collect

5 them. And I was told by the Finance

6 Director, no, we're not going to do that

7 right now. And so I didn't, and I don't

8 think they ever have.

9 Q. Let me ask you this question. Who is the

10 director of the Finance Director? Who is the

11 supervisor of the Finance Director?

12 A. The Finance Director answers to the City

13 Manager to my knowledge.

14 Q. So she works directly under the City Manager?

15 A. Yes, sir, as far as I know that's her line of

16 - that's her boss.

17 Q. Now she would have had the training at some

18 point prior to you learning how to train in

19 April, she had the training to run this kind

20 of report and had the equipment to do so?

21 A. Absolutely. My understanding, this is

22 hearsay, but they told me that when Leslie

23 Haase now, when she started with the City one

24 of the things that she was assigned to was to

25 help set up this HGE system or whatever they


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1 call it now, and then go through training

2 with everybody. So my understanding she

3 would have been involved with that entire

4 process.

5 Q. How long had she been there prior to your

6 quitting your job?

7 A. Oh, as far as - I know she was there in at

8 least 1999.

9 Q. So she existed before you did in that job

10 capacity?

11 A. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

12 Q. So it seems to me that some of the guilt for

13 this would have fallen on the Finance

14 Director. Don't you agree?

15 A. I would absolutely agree. I believe that

16 part of this whole thing was that when a

17 report was run (inaudible), they obviously

18 said, well, you've never run this report?

19 No. So they ran it, and they sent it

20 through. Well, it landed on her desk, and I

21 think rather than attempt to go to her and

22 say, hey, let's just look at what happened, I

23 think she went, oh, my god, this looks bad on

24 me, I've got to dump it on someone.

25 Q. When you said "they", who was present at your


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1 first interview?

2 A. My first interview was with Sam Anselm and

3 David Allgood.

4 Q. Mr. Rohr was not there?

5 A. No, sir, he didn't attend any of them.

6 Q. He didn't attend any of these meetings?

7 A. Not with me he did not.

8 Q. Who was there at the second meeting?

9 A. The second meeting it was Sam Anselm, Dave

10 Allgood, and Leslie Haase.

11 Q. And were you able to present your side of

12 this information to anybody? Did it get

13 reported anywhere?

14 A. Oh, yes, as I was being questioned I

15 indicated that I had discovered this, this

16 certain information, and that we were still

17 working on it. Because that was on July 3rd

18 and on - this is on July 5th, because they

19 kind of just threw it at me, hey, all this

20 money is missing. Well, it's not missing,

21 but your assumption is that somebody is

22 absconding with all the money. But that was

23 not the case. So then two days later we

24 started through it and now we had some

25 specifics thrown at me by the Finance


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1 Director in which - one particular check they

2 were looking for. They said that we had -

3 cashed a check, or they couldn't record it,

4 or, etcetera. Well, it turned out that it

5 had been miscoded, the check had been

6 received, the check had been put into the

7 system, but it was coded incorrectly so it

8 didn't show up on the right address.

9 Q. Whose coding error was it?

10 A. It was ours. It would have been my

11 department. I mean, I have no question that

12 the coding would have happened in - but she

13 was well aware of that because when she

14 wrote it into the - when they wanted to have

15 the employee hearing or whatever they call

16 that thing, the fact finding hearing, they

17 wasn't any information presented and written

18 in that fact finding hearing. So she knew it

19 had been miscoded and rather than just state

20 that she asked me about it, and kept asking

21 me. And I said, well, I tell you what, I

22 said, if I have lost a check, then I have

23 lost a check, I said, but why don't I go

24 ahead and call these folks and I'll find out

25 if it's been cashed, and the answer at that


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1 time was, no, don't do that right now. So I

2 don't know what she was attempting then. She

3 knew it was miscoded, she knew it had been

4 cashed, but she was going to lead me down the

5 path that they wanted, and so that - you

6 know, I didn't realize that until the

7 information for the fact finding hearing got

8 sent to me, and then I read that they knew it

9 was miscoded. And at that point it was

10 already - I was already starting to feel like

11 this was all going in one direction,

12 particularly since they called David in and

13 got to drilling him, also.

14 Q. Was this already in the press?

15 A. Was it in the press?

16 Q. Yes.

17 A. No, no.

18 Q. When did it go to the press?

19 A. It reached the press - well, it was within

20 the next week or so, because they went after

21 David and he agreed to take a lesser

22 position, and then I believe it showed up in

23 the press then because they knew that they

24 had to put something out there. I don't know

25 if it made it - it did make it there before I


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1 decided not to stay.

2 Q. You don't know if it did?

3 A. No, I think it did.

4 Q. So it was already in the press before you

5 decided not to stay?

6 A. I believe it was, yes, sir.

7 Q. Well, let me ask you this. Were you able to

8 refute this information in particular about

9 the check that had been cashed?

10 A. Indicated that it was around the July 24th -

11 let me see here. The fact finding

12 information they sent to me. Let me see if I

13 can find where it even says it. No, not in

14 these reports. Your Number 3 on Exhibit #C,

15 1717 Marketplace building permit number 11426

16 for $2,369.00 issued and received, but

17 assigned to a different address without a

18 permit. So they clearly knew that it was

19 assigned, the money was collected, it was not

20 missing. These are the kind of things that

21 had popped up and we were looking at them as

22 I went through them and say, yeah, there's

23 something, here it is. Even this Exhibit C

24 I'm looking at that they included as part of

25 my fact finding hearing, they even stated


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1 things on here that were from 2004, from

2 1999, they commented about that, and that to

3 me was - at that point I said, well, here. I

4 know what they're going for and why would I -

5 you know, why would I have to answer for

6 things that are before I even showed up at

7 the City? So, yeah, they were trying to make

8 a bigger case out of something. That's why I

9 say part of it was something to try to pin it

10 on David, I think. I don't know that he was

11 in his job any longer than I was.

12 Q. Now let me ask you this question. Were you

13 allowed to then refute that information?

14 A. I was given one more interview which occurred

15 on July - they said, you know, they wanted me

16 to bring that information, which I had

17 already tried to explain to them it's going

18 to take a little time, guys. So, you know,

19 we have to put it together, then we need to

20 discover - obviously if we were not doing a

21 good job of collecting or something like that

22 then, okay, now we know that, you can just go

23 ahead and do this proper chain, which is you

24 discover a concern, you go to the department,

25 you sit down, you work out what's going on,


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1 instead of just going for the jugular. On

2 7/10, by July 10th I came back, and at that

3 point I had done some research, but I can

4 tell you that when I sat down with them I

5 gave them no more information. I made a

6 statement to them, I said - I told them that

7 as far as I was concerned I had done the very

8 best job that I could possibly do with the

9 resources, training, and tools given to me by

10 the City of Joplin. And I said that's going

11 to be my answer for everything else, too,

12 because I said you guys are trying to

13 railroad us. I said I've already been on

14 your railroad before and I'm not going to

15 play the game again. And they told me, well,

16 you know we'll have to take further action,

17 and I said, you'll do what you have to do.

18 And they did.

19 Q. Who was at the third meeting?

20 A. The third meeting it was also Sam Anselm,

21 Leslie, and Dave Allgood. And they recorded

22 all these meetings.

23 Q. They did record them?

24 A. Oh, yes, sir.

25 Q. Let me ask you this question. Can you mail


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1 me your termination papers and this Exhibit C

2 that goes with it?

3 A. Absolutely. They sent the letter for the

4 fact finding hearing, and they put me on -

5 they suspended me. Oh, let's see, I think

6 they put me on suspension the week of the

7 22nd, and this came during the week, and I

8 looked at it, thought about it for awhile,

9 and finally said, you know, yes, I believe

10 that I could go have this hearing or I could

11 defend myself, probably be fine even though

12 Sam recommended I be terminated, I believed

13 that I could have probably done fine. But as

14 I sat down and thought about it, well, why

15 did I want to keep working for these people

16 when this was what they had done? No matter

17 what it was a lose/lose situation.

18 Q. You actually think it was railroaded and

19 actually dishonesty involved?

20 A. Oh, I absolutely believe they were dishonest.

21 The intent was to cover up their own errors,

22 speaking of the Finance Director,

23 particularly, and the other two had been

24 directed to do what they needed to -

25 Q. Can I get you to send that letter, and also


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1 if you would - I know it's been a long time,

2 but if you would draft some of your responses

3 to show that it was railroaded, it would be

4 helpful to me.

5 A. Okay.

6 Q. If you would do that. And let me give you an

7 address to get that to.

8 A. If you have an email I will just get it and

9 email it to you.

10 Q. Email, yeah, we could do that, I guess. And

11 including your response, too?

12 A. Yeah, there's no reason I can't write up my

13 information. What kind of responses that

14 you're asking for?

15 Q. Well, I'm asking for what is the truth versus

16 what they found.

17 A. Sure. Sure.

18 Q. Now is there anything else? So you never

19 really dealt directly with Mark Rohr?

20 A. No, sir, not in any of these situations.

21 There were - I still believe that the intent

22 was to railroad David and, you know, my own

23 speculation is because it was out, there was

24 always - there's always projects going on

25 that there is some discretionary line within


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1 the City to be used, and I believe that he

2 had special projects and he wanted the money

3 he asked for. Now he couldn't get somebody

4 to agree to take it out of certain funds, so

5 he wanted control over it. That's just pure

6 speculation. I don't know more than that,

7 but I do know for myself, I know that they

8 did not handle this whole process correctly.

9 There was no reason to go right to fact

10 finding hearing, or these interviews, when

11 they could have just come down and said, hey,

12 you know, David, Steve, this is what we

13 discovered. But instead they had already

14 written up an accusation, as far as I'm

15 concerned, and given it to the Human

16 Resources guy, that's what they acted on.

17 Q. Do you know that none of this information

18 went through the public information lady?

19 A. Do I know that it did?

20 Q. Yeah, did you know that none of it went

21 through her? That's Lynn Onstot.

22 A. Oh, I wondered that. But that doesn't

23 surprise me. That they left her out of the

24 loop when they've gone to the newspaper and

25 all that, uh-huh.


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1 Q. And let me give you a number, you know, an

2 email address here. It's DAHolliday,

3 H-O-L-L-I-D-A-Y, at Hotmail.com. (Referring

4 to Exhibit #49)

5 A. Hotmail, okay. Give me the first part of it

6 again. I got the H-O-L-L-I-D-A-Y and

7 Hotmail.

8 Q. Yeah, it's D-A in front of that, and it's all

9 part of the same word, it's not separate.

10 A. E like Edward, A like Albert?

11 Q. Yes.

12 A. E-A --

13 BY COURT REPROTER: D as in dog, sir.

14 A. I'm sorry?

15 Q. (By Mr. Loraine) D as in dog.

16 A. Oh, D as in dog, A as in Albert, Holliday.

17 One L?

18 BY COURT REPORTER: Two.

19 A. Two L's, got it. [email protected].

20 Q. (By Mr. Loraine) Yeah, and DAHolliday is all

21 one word.

22 A. Okay, got it.

23 Q. Now, what this will do is this will get to my

24 court reporter. She will transcribe this

25 information so that we don't have any


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1 problems as to where it came from. And if

2 you will identify that as an attachment in

3 your letter.

4 A. Okay. Again I have had conversations since I

5 left also with one of our investigating

6 officers down there who was supposedly

7 investigating I believe any criminal charges,

8 which according to him they had already made

9 recommendation that no criminal charges, or

10 nothing criminal had been found, yet the

11 newspaper was still indicating by Mr. Rohr,

12 he stated that the investigation was still

13 open, even though I had been told

14 differently.

15 Q. When did you get the information? How do you

16 know that they were still saying the criminal

17 stuff was open?

18 A. Oh, because I get the newspaper up here.

19 Q. Okay.

20 A. Yeah, and I mean I can also send you that

21 information as well. That's not a problem.

22 He had a series of questions that he mailed

23 to me and I answered. I have it right here.

24 Q. Hang on for a minute. Just a minute.

25 A. Yeah, no problem.


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1 Q. I'll tell you, Mr. Cope, is there anything

2 else about Mark's style of management that

3 you can comment on?

4 A. Yeah, yeah, very dictatorial, authority, and

5 I believe that he manipulated the information

6 the Council got by not - you know, by putting

7 off things that should have been, you know,

8 brought to the Council. I don't mean hiding

9 them, but more benefitally revealing within

10 the departments code changes, things like

11 that. He picked and chose what got on the

12 agenda for the Council to consider, and

13 basically there was stuff that I believe was

14 important, that the Council needed to make a

15 decision on, but he would not take it to them

16 until he covered his agenda first. Yeah, I

17 know that my boss was scared to death of him.

18 David just - if something came up from

19 Mark's office David just - he would just be

20 in a panic to get it answered immediately.

21 Whether it was - whatever, it was just he was

22 in a panic.

23 Q. Is that consistent with his dictatorial -

24 what I'm hearing you say is he does not have

25 a conducive style for assisting the


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1 management of his department heads, nor of

2 the people underneath them?

3 A. Oh, absolutely. I mean in the seven years I

4 was there there were still people that the

5 guy didn't even know their names. I know

6 that's not terrible, but come on, we're not

7 that big of city. And this is somebody who

8 his agenda was the only agenda, and his

9 managers, they couldn't just state to him

10 that something they were doing was really

11 ridiculous, they would get in trouble or get

12 them fired, so they were just scared to death

13 of him.

14 Q. Didn't know how to - Mark does not know how

15 to use the expertise that is available to

16 him? Am I hearing that?

17 A. Oh, yeah, I mean absolutely. There were

18 times that they would ask me for information

19 and I would spend a lot of time on it and

20 they'd go ahead and he would decide, or do it

21 the way he thought it should be. I mean, I

22 sat in on a few meetings off and on during

23 the tornado with him and here - way back, not

24 long after - and I don't know how long I had

25 been there. I got asked a question by one of


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1 the boards that I sat on, and I answered, and

2 he got hit up by one of the Councilmen at a

3 Council meeting about what I had said. Which

4 I had just answered a question. Council went

5 through a little short piece out of it and

6 kind of jumped on Mark's tail that night, and

7 I was told the next day that - he grabbed

8 David Hertzberg, and he grabbed Jack

9 Schaller, and pretty much told them he wanted

10 my head on a platter. It was that simple.

11 And I said for what? Well, you know, he got

12 that (inaudible) by the Council, you know,

13 you really shouldn't. I said wait a minute.

14 It's a new board that I work with, they asked

15 me a question and I gave them an answer. I

16 said nothing more to that. And so I ended up

17 getting written up for stating my opinion.

18 Q. You don't think it was based on fact, wasn't

19 it?

20 A. Absolutely. I mean when I went - it was an

21 opinion, and I will still state that here.

22 If the Council had chosen to read the whole

23 thing they'd see what I said, this is only my

24 opinion, but I believe that this is not going

25 to work this way. Oh, yeah, that was it.


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1 And so basically I was kind of - after that.

2 I didn't really exist and they kept me

3 insulated. If there was anything that at the

4 billing department or anything like that

5 David took it, and I didn't. That was that.

6 Which is fine. I mean, it wasn't something I

7 really cared about anyway. But, you know,

8 the fact that I was written up on voicing an

9 opinion for which I was asked, that kind of

10 chapped my butt.

11 Q. Yeah, I'm sure it did, yeah. You actually

12 described what I would call a hostile work

13 environment. Am I - is that too dramatic?

14 A. Really, truly, for the people that worked

15 under him, I'll tell you what, I don't know

16 how you could call it anything else. When

17 people are not, you know, excited to go - you

18 know, they don't even want to talk to their

19 boss because they don't respect their

20 opinions or doesn't really care. You know,

21 David is not a confrontational kind of guy,

22 and I imagine you've met David at some point.

23 So, poor David, he was on pins and needles

24 all the time. I'm surprised he didn't have

25 ulcers. But, here again, it was - yeah, what


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1 I saw of it, I don't know how someone will

2 put up with it. But, you know, I was lucky

3 because I had three encounters that were with

4 me, and there was one, for instance, where

5 one of my employees had gotten so bad we

6 said, look, this employee needs to be - I had

7 David, I had myself, I had Jack Schaller, and

8 we had Reba Snavely, who would be the Human

9 Resources Director at that time, and all four

10 of us said, yeah, we need to suspend her and

11 we need to start proceedings to get rid of

12 her, and he said no, I want to talk to her.

13 So he invited her downstairs, and basically

14 we were all told, no, she's not going

15 anywhere.

16 Q. What was that woman's name?

17 A. Char Webb.

18 BY COURT REPORTER: What was it? I'm

19 sorry.

20 BY THE WITNESS: Char, Charlene Webb.

21 BY COURT REPORTER: Okay. Thank you.

22 Q. (By Mr. Loraine) And Ms. Webb - so all four

23 of your opinions were disregarded and Mr.

24 Rohr kept her anyway?

25 A. Yes, he did.


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1 Q. Okay. Is there anything else that I should

2 know that I have not asked you about along

3 these lines?

4 A. You know, that's - like I say, I will send

5 you the information that I put together for

6 one of those hearings. Here once I was gone

7 I didn't spend anymore time digging into

8 anymore of things. But the whole process of

9 that was handled so, so wrong, and there was

10 no attempt to say, hey, we discovered we have

11 - this report got run and we discovered that

12 we have a problem, let's try to figure it

13 out. It was, boom, boom, boom, we're going

14 this way. And after I talked to David after

15 they had interviewed him I think somewhere in

16 that week or so when this was going on I

17 could see where they were headed with it, so

18 I basically threw in the towel, said I'm not

19 going to fight this anymore. I'm too old.

20 Q. How old a gentleman are you, sir?

21 A. I'm 51.

22 Q. Okay. And did this affect your ability to

23 get any jobs afterwards?

24 A. Not at the moment. You know, I resigned, so

25 I suppose at some point they might ask me,


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1 you know, why I resigned, but I'm not going

2 to have any problem saying I resigned because

3 I felt like there was something going on that

4 was not reasonable or fair, and I don't mind

5 telling people that.

6 Q. Yeah.

7 A. I'm working now, so I guess it didn't affect

8 that.

9 Q. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Cope. I'd

10 appreciate it if you would send that to me

11 through that email address and we'll include

12 that as an exhibit number to your deposition.

13 A. I will do that tomorrow.

14 Q. Thank you very much.

15

16 (SWORN STATEMENT CONCLUDED)

17

18

19


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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

STATE OF MISSOURI

ss.

COUNTY OF JASPER

I, SHARON K. ROGERS, Certified Court Reporter in the

State of Missouri, do certify that pursuant to the

foregoing Stipulation the witness came before me on the

17th of December, 2013, was duly sworn by me, and was

examined. That examination was then taken by me by

steno-mask recording and afterwards transcribed; said Sworn

Statement is subscribed by the witness as hereinbefore set

out on the day in that behalf aforesaid and is herewith

returned.

I further certify that I am not counsel, attorney, or

relative of either party, or clerk, or stenographer of

either party or of the attorney of either party, or

otherwise interested in the event of this suit.

________________________

SHARON K. ROGERS, CCR-650

Cope, Steve | Testimony transcript

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Transcript of Cope, Steve | Testimony transcript