{"id":74072,"date":"2025-12-30T21:40:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T21:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/74072\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T21:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T21:40:25","slug":"lawsuit-against-allentown-could-compel-city-officials-to-release-report-from-discrimination-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/74072\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit against Allentown could compel city officials to release report from discrimination probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A lawsuit against the city could force officials to hand over the results of a long-running investigation into claims of racism and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Officials have refused to share the documents after spending more than half a million dollars on the probe.<\/p>\n

Tawanna Whitehead, who works closely with council in her role as deputy clerk, alleges city officials looked the other way and \u201cdid shamefully little\u201d to intervene as one member created a \u201cracially hostile\u201d work environment.<\/p>\n

Whitehead sued Allentown in Lehigh County court a year ago, amid an investigation into race-based claims at City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal legislators are absolutely immune from liability for their legislative actions.”<\/p>\n

Allentown attorneys<\/p>\n

Council hired former FBI agent Scott Curtis’ company, FLEO Investigations, in June 2024<\/a> to lead a probe after authorizing it in October 2023.<\/p>\n

But members put the kibosh on Curtis\u2019 work in January when they terminated his contract and hired Duane Morris LLC to take over<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More than eight months later, leaders of the Philadelphia-based law firm released a set of recommendations based on their modified analysis of city policies rather than specific complaints or allegations of racism and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Officials shared no findings at a Sept. 4 news conference<\/a>, but in an emailed statement to reporters later that day, they said Duane Morris found “isolated discriminatory conduct by individual city employees.”<\/p>\n

Maria Montero, city council\u2019s solicitor, told reporters that residents should not expect to see a published report of findings from either set of investigators.<\/p>\n

And the city denied LehighValleyNews.com\u2019s Right-to-Know request for records produced during the probe, beyond again sharing the aforementioned press release.<\/p>\n

City fights subpoenas<\/p>\n

Marc Weinstein, Whitehead\u2019s attorney, now is asking a judge to compel officials to share those records as part of the discovery process for their case.<\/p>\n

He subpoenaed the city twice in October, seeking \u201cany and all documents\u201d related to the investigations conducted by Curtis\u2019 FLEO Investigations and Duane Morris LLC.<\/p>\n

Weinstein argues in legal filings that those requested documents \u2014 which include emails, notes, recordings, invoices and reports \u2014 would show whether Whitehead worked in a racially hostile environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese materials are no more confidential than if the city had hired Duane Morris to investigate what brand of asphalt \u2026 lasted the longest.”<\/p>\n

Marc Weinstein, attorney for Tawanna Whitehead<\/p>\n

City lawyers are looking to block the release of those documents, arguing they are protected by attorney-client privilege and would not \u201cprove whether or not Ms. Whitehead was subjected to a racially based hostile work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also claim materials are protected from release because they are \u201cprocedurally legislative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal legislators are absolutely immune from liability for their legislative actions,\u201d Allentown attorneys argue in a Nov. 14 motion to quash Weinstein\u2019s subpoenas.<\/p>\n

But Whitehead\u2019s attorney argues the requested documents \u201care all fair game\u201d because investigators were not providing legal advice nor helping council members draft legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese materials are no more confidential than if the city had hired Duane Morris to investigate what brand of asphalt \u2026 lasted the longest,\u201d Weinstein wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to hire a law firm, but assuredly another to hire a law firm for the purpose of securing legal advice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costly probe<\/p>\n

Whitehead\u2019s lawsuit, filed in November 2024<\/a>, links her allegations to the city council-approved investigation in its first sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cCity Council has authorized and retained an outside investigator to get to the bottom of [allegations] and is willing to spend up to $300,000 to do it,\u201d the lawsuit opens.<\/p>\n

Council earmarked that much in October 2023 when it authorized the investigation.<\/p>\n

But a year on from Whitehead filing her lawsuit, the total cost of the dual investigations \u2014 and a related lawsuit between council and the mayor \u2014 looks set to settle closer to double the initial funding set aside.<\/p>\n

Allentown owed Curtis about $68,000 for his work during the second half of 2024 as he conducted dozens of interviews before council hired Duane Morris LLC to step in.<\/p>\n

The law firm agreed to try to limit its billable costs to $450,000 after quoting a price of up to $1 million for the probe.<\/p>\n

Council members this fall approved spending more than $375,000 to cover five months of work by Duane Morris LLC, with an expectation that more bills would be submitted.<\/p>\n

And city officials spent more than $110,000 on a legal fight over Curtis hiring.<\/p>\n

Mayor Matt Tuerk refused to pay Curtis after council sidestepped the city\u2019s normal contracting process to hire the former FBI agent.<\/p>\n

The body hired lawyers to pursue litigation to force Tuerk to honor their contract, but members voted to drop the effort on the eve of the case\u2019s first court date.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear whether Curtis has yet been paid by the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A lawsuit against the city could force officials to hand over the results of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,2748,38336,3732,3015,121,2454,120,1692,38335],"class_list":{"0":"post-74072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-city-council","10":"tag-allentown-city-hall-investigation","11":"tag-allentown-discrimination","12":"tag-allentown-discrimination-investigation","13":"tag-allentown-headlines","14":"tag-allentown-mayor","15":"tag-allentown-news","16":"tag-allentown-racism-investigation","17":"tag-fbi-scott-curtis-investigation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74072","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=74072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}