North Carolina: Agent rose through ranks after filing lawsuit
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Documents show that a North Carolina police officer began his rise through the ranks after he filed a racial discrimination complaint against the State Bureau of Investigation, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The SBI released details of a settlement with agent Mark Isley reached in October 2005. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that the documents were released Friday, months after the newspaper first requested the documents.
Isley is one of two SBI agents being sued by a mentally disabled man who was held for 14 years at a state mental hospital in Raleigh after being charged with murder.
Agents said Floyd Brown confessed to the murder, but his attorneys said the confession was beyond his abilities. They said Isley and another agent violated his rights to due process.
Isley would not comment to The News & Observer for its story and a telephone message left at a listing for Isley in Monroe was not returned.
Former SBI Director Robin Pendergraft has defended Isley, saying she knew of nothing showing Isley had done anything wrong.
Pendergraft, who was removed as SBI director in July and made head of the state’s Medicaid fraud investigations, was at the center of Isley’s complaints against the SBI in 2004.
Isley complained that he was passed over for a job despite having more education and experience than the person who was promoted.
“I have never as much been reprimanded/written up during my 15 year SBI career,” Isley wrote in his complaint. “My last two (2) employee evaluations were documented at a level of OUTSTANDING.”
Isley said several black agents applied for supervisory positions that Pendergraft gave to white men.
“There has not been a single SBI sworn law enforcement black male ever promoted by the current administration when a white person also applied for the same managerial position,” Isley wrote. “This discriminatory practice has resulted in a white male being promoted each of the ten (10) times that a black male had applied for the same position.”
As part of the SBI’s settlement with Isley in October 2005, he became a supervisor in the Medicaid fraud unit and his salary was raised to $72,081. That made him the highest paid special agent in charge in his pay grade.
He also got an office assignment near his home in Monroe and travel expenses when he had to work at his office in Raleigh.
Pendergraft revised the agency’s promotion process and increased minority recruitment and hiring.
Now, Pendergraft, who is again Isley’s boss at the Medicaid fraud unit, has been added to Floyd Brown’s lawsuit against the SBI and Isley and retired agent Bill Lane, who was present during Brown’s interrogation.
Brown’s lawyers claim Pendergraft and other supervisors showed “malice, ill will and wanton disregard” for Brown by failing to appropriately supervise and train Isley and Lane.
Louisiana: Relatives of Barq’s founder sue Coca-Cola
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The great-grandchildren of the founder of Barq’s root beer are suing the Coca-Cola Company, claiming Coca-Cola doesn’t legally own their share of Barq’s.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Louisiana, outlines the long and complicated history of the Barq’s family in Louisiana and Mississippi dating back more than a century.
The suit seeks an unspecified amount.
Coca-Cola spokesman Kel Villarrubia told The Times-Picayune that the claims are bogus.
The estate of Arthur Louis Robinson filed the suit. Robinson’s children claim Coca-Cola didn’t have the legal right to purchase a certain one-third share of the Barq’s company when its acquisition was made in 1995, despite signed contracts to the contrary.
Coca-Cola purchased Barq’s for $91 million.
The Barq’s story begins in about 1890, when Edward Charles Edmond Barq Sr. created Barq Brothers Bottling Co. in the French Quarter, according to the lawsuit.
Barq stopped operating the company in 1897 and moved to Biloxi, Miss., where he founded the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works in 1899. By 1901, he was selling a sarsaparilla-based drink called Barq’s in Biloxi.
According to the suit, at some point in the early 1900s, Barq fathered a child, Jasper “Jesse” Louis Robinson, out of wedlock. Robinson lived with the Barq family.
The suit alleges that Robinson, at the urging of Barq, created and operated a Barq’s production facility in New Orleans. In 1934, Barq gave Robinson the right to use the Barq’s formula and name to sell root beer in all of Louisiana, excluding Washington Parish, while Barq maintained the exclusive rights to operate in Mississippi.
In 1936, Barq dissolved Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works and created Barq’s Inc. to operate the Mississippi Barq’s enterprise. Ten years later, after Barq died, Robinson formed Barq’s Beverages Inc. to oversee the Louisiana territories.
When Robinson died in 1949, he left half of the company to his wife, Marie Vicknair Robinson. The other half was to be divided three ways between his children, including Jesse Robinson, who was named president by his mother. The children were also to divide evenly their mother’s share upon her death. Robinson, however, was ousted from the company by his sisters in 1971 and sold his one-third share to them upon his departure. He also sold, according to documents, his planned inheritance.
The latter is the basis for the suit. Robinson’s estate argues that it is not possible to sell an inheritance under Louisiana law, said the estate’s attorney, Andrew Kramer.
That Robinson did so makes the entire contract null and void and means he still had an interest in the Louisiana Barq’s company, which went on to merge with the Mississippi company before being sold to Coca-Cola in 1995 for $91 million. Robinson died in 1996.
He is succeeded by three children.
They are asking for one-third interest in the “fruits and revenues generated and produced” by the acquisition of Barq’s “including, without limitation, the increase in value of those rights, the revenues generated from the use of the Barq’s trademark” in Louisiana. The estate is also asking for a share of stock in the Coca-Cola company that would be equal to the amount Robinson held in the Barq’s brand or some monetary compensation.
