Hearing set in lawsuit against treasurer

LITTLE ROCK — A hearing has been scheduled for 9 a. m. Aug. 12 before U. S. District Judge Leon Holmes on a former treasurer’s office employee’s request for a preliminary injunction that would require State Treasurer Dennis Milligan to hold a name- clearing hearing for the former employee.

The hearing was scheduled Monday after Luther Sutter, an attorney representing the treasurer’s former outreach manager, David Singer, requested it.

Milligan terminated Singer from a $65,000-a-year job April 27, and Singer filed a defamation lawsuit against Milligan and his chief of staff, Jim Harris, on May 28. The lawsuit, originally filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, was moved to federal court by Byron Freeland, an attorney who began representing Milligan and Harris after the attorney general’s office bowed out, citing an unspecified conflict of interests.

In the lawsuit, Singer said Harris spoke about Singer’s deceased wife in a “disgusting manner” while Singer was grieving her death from breast cancer. He said Harris also told people, including journalists, Singer had “mental problems” and used his wife’s death to make “sexual advances toward other women.”

The suit further alleges Milligan fired Singer because he thought he was mentally ill and in retaliation for Singer’s exercise of his rights under the Arkansas Whistle-Blower Act to speak out about the use of public funds for political activities.

Last week, Freeland filed a response to the lawsuit saying Singer isn’t entitled to a name-clearing hearing because he didn’t seek such a hearing before filing his lawsuit.