MOUNT JULIET, TN (WSMV) -
Explosive accusations involving sex and cell phones have five local city workers under investigation.
For now, two of those Mt. Juliet employees are off the job. All of it stems from a complaint filed Friday, but what got them in trouble may have been going on for months.
Officially, the internal review centers on a "misuse" of city-owned cell phones and computers. It means taxpayers' dollars may have been used for very, very personal things.
Kenny Martin just took the job as interim city manager in Mt. Juliet a few months ago.
And this kind of controversy doesn't make for an easy start.
"I think the citizens would be disappointed. And they have my apologies, because these are the kinds of things that shouldn't be happening," Martin said.
The accusations surfaced Friday when a police officer said five fellow city workers were involved in explicit electronic messages.
Martin said some of those allegedly happened on city time.
"It does look like a bit of an onion. The more layers you peel, sort of, the more things you seem to find," Martin said. "And that's unfortunate."
Tuesday, the city identified the five workers as James Crosslin, a city police sergeant; public works employees Shannon Joyner and Casey Binion; Crosslin's wife Charlene Crosslin; and Amanda Graves, who work for the city's finance department.
All five have been Mt. Juliet employees for several years.
"Ridiculous could be a word. Nonsense could be a word," said interim city manager Kenny Martin.
To make matters worse, the accusations date back for months - apparently as far back as September.
"Could we have maybe done more back then? I don't know, because I don't know exactly what was said and what was alleged. Because there's not a lot of documentation there," Martin said.
But there will be now. The city seized all of the workers' cell phones and computers and will pull records as it investigates.
From there, a final report will determine the future for the five workers and the city's policies.
"An inadvertent phone call here or there just to talk to a spouse or a child, or something like that, that's okay. That's done in every workplace. But the things alleged here are not - I don't know that they'd be appropriate in any place," Martin said.
Martin said he could not comment on the relationships between the five, but Charlene Crosslin recently filed an order of protection against her estranged husband.
The investigation should take about two weeks, and the Crosslins are the only ones off the job. Both are on administrative leave with pay.
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