Attorney Troy Rafferty represents that Escambia County Commissioners in their battle to get County Clerk Pam Childers to honor their 401(a) contract and cut checks to their retirement accounts. This morning, he appeared on WCOA 1370AM/104.9FM to discuss Judge William Stone’s rulings that will allow the county’s lawsuit against Childers to proceed.
“We’re obviously very happy with the outcome,” he said of Stone’s kicking out Childers’ counter-lawsuit and dismissing her attempt to quash the writ of mandamus. “We feel like the judge made the absolute right decision. Really, what the clerk was trying to do is just improper, and so we’re very happy with it and look forward to getting into the discovery phase of this.”
Rafferty hopes the public stays engaged in the following the case, noting that over 100 people watched last month’s hearing online.
“The more facts that actually come out, the more it’s shown that this is nothing but a personal and political vendetta by the clerk,” said the attorney. “And the only thing that’s she’s accomplishing is wasting the taxpayer’s money. I mean, she’s hired two law firms. Two law firms paying them, I don’t even know, paying them thousands and thousands of dollars from the taxpayer.”
He said he looks forward to deposing Childers and her employees. “The clerk’s office is the one that presented the options to these commissioners. All they did was get a form from the Clerk, from her office and check a box, ‘Okay, I’ll take this one.’ That’s all they did.”
Rafferty continued, “And yet the daily newspaper wants to paint this as something that is just so false, it’s just so wrong what they are trying to do. And I don’t know what the motivation is behind it. I don’t know why, but they refuse to actually look at the facts as I have laid them out in my pleadings, as I’ve laid them out in court. And I’m going to lay them out in my cross examination of the Clerk in front of the court. I mean, this is just so wrong that she is wasting the taxpayers’ money.”
The News Journal’s editorial board has repeatedly attacked the Levin Papantonio Rafferty law firm and Rafferty for presenting the county at no charge. The LPR partner has tried high-profile cases all over the country. Has he ever been attacked for representing a client by the daily newspaper in those cities?
“Never, not until the News Journal did it in my own hometown that I’ve been in for 30 years,” Rafferty shared. “And now they want to attack me for representing a client for free and trying to do the right thing. But they’ve attacked everybody.”
