{"id":56424,"date":"2025-12-09T18:45:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56424\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T18:45:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:45:17","slug":"allentown-appeals-judges-order-requiring-release-of-preliminary-report-on-alleged-racism-and-discrimination-at-city-hall-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56424\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown appeals judge&#8217;s order requiring release of preliminary report on alleged racism and discrimination at city hall | State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ALLENTOWN, Pa. &#8211; Allentown is appealing a\u00a0federal judge&#8217;s order to release a preliminary report on\u00a0alleged racism and discrimination at Allentown City Hall.<\/p>\n<p>The city filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, according to court paperwork.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-page &#8220;Curtis report&#8221; is the first look into what former FBI Agent Scott Curtis was allegedly told by Allentown city employees regarding claims of racism and discrimination at city hall.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"tnt-inline-link\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"tncms-inline-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/tncms\/asset\/editorial\/ecd01eae-4699-4e2d-9456-bfea2d0fa1a8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Exclusive: &#8216;Curtis report&#8217; acquired by 69 News just a piece of larger trove of investigative documents<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Curtis was hired by city council in June of 2024. At the time, Mayor Matt Tuerk argued council didn&#8217;t follow proper procedure in hiring Curtis and declined to pay him.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Curtis settled with the City of Allentown for $50,000, turning over all of his investigative materials.\u00a0Curtis also signed a non-disclosure agreement.<\/p>\n<p>A federal judge had ordered all of the investigative\u00a0materials be released because they could potentially impact a claim of discrimination filed by Allentown Deputy Clerk Tawanna Whitehead.<\/p>\n<p>Whitehead is not mentioned by name in the report.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"tnt-inline-link\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"tncms-inline-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/tncms\/asset\/editorial\/d0341bcc-f035-440f-9602-e1474a448ab7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Federal ruling forces Allentown to release records in City Hall discrimination inquiry<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The preliminary report is an investigative tool and not a legal document.<\/p>\n<p>The city hired another firm, Duane Morris, to investigate some of the same allegations detailed in the Curtis report. The judge ruled that report was subject to attorney-client privilege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. &#8211; Allentown is appealing a\u00a0federal judge&#8217;s order to release a preliminary report on\u00a0alleged racism and discrimination&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,740,742,4027,382,380,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-56424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-justice","12":"tag-law","13":"tag-matthew-tuerk","14":"tag-politics-of-the-united-states","15":"tag-society-of-the-united-states","16":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}