TUNICA NARCOTICS OFFICER SUES OVER FIRING

TUNICA, Miss. - A former narcotics officer in the Tunica County
Sheriff's Department says Sheriff Jerry Ellington warned employees
they'd be fired if they met with the FBI or Mississippi Bureau of
Narcotics last year. In a federal lawsuit filed in Oxford this week,
former Lt. Jerome Hudson alleges he was wrongly terminated in
February for being a "whistle-blower'' in a joint state and federal
probe that brought down the previous sheriff.

Hudson says he was fired on the pretext that he had falsified records
to keep a federal witness in custody.

While he worked at the sheriff's department, he says he cooperated in
a federal Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, Bureau of Narcotics
and Mississippi Highway Patrol investigation of internal corruption
that led to the guilty pleas of former sheriff John J. Pickett III
and chief deputy Willie Starks, in 1999.

Hudson alleges that on May 18, 2000, Ellington told him and other
staff not to meet with the FBI or the narcotics bureau "as they were
trying to put him (Ellington) out of office.''

As a narcotics officer, Hudson told Ellington he had to meet with
those agencies to meet his job obligations.

More than nine months later, at the conclusion of a criminal trial at
which the alleged false documents about the detained witness became
an issue, Ellington fired Hudson.

One of the defendants in that drug case had alleged misconduct on the
part of federal prosecutors and had proved, in a previous trial, that
an FBI agent had falsified a document. The FBI agent was charged and
later pleaded guilty to the charge.

In an interview in his office Wednesday, Ellington said he probably
did warn employees not to talk with authorities from other agencies.

"May 18, 2000? I don't know. I might have. If I did, it was not in a
derogatory way.''

He said he may have told them not to talk to "the FBI or CIA or
anybody else'' because he wanted official inquiries to come through
him.

He said his policy was: "If you want to talk to (my employees), I
have no problem with that. My stuff is right out here on top of the
table.''

As for the wrongful termination, Ellington said there was no pretext.
Hudson had had a female witness in the same drug case held in jail,
telling jailers she was in the witness protection program. Ellington
later learned that wasn't true, he said.

"He falsified information about some witness protection program;
that's what he put in her folder,'' he said.

It raised issues of legal liability and the inmate's civil rights, he said.

"If that has been going on previously, how many others has it
happened to?'' he asked. "How can I reinstate you? If you can justify
it, I'll maybe give you some consideration. .|.|. He violated
policies. It ain't my fault.''

Hudson's version, as stated in the lawsuit, is that "it was
well-known by all involved,'' including the FBI and U.S. Attorney's
Office, that the woman was not a formal participant in the federal
witness protection program but merely a federal witness. The lawsuit
says Hudson was praised for his service to the FBI.

Hudson says Ellington's statements damaged his reputation and
affected his ability to get a job in law enforcement.

Hudson's is one of more than a dozen civil lawsuits filed this year
against the sheriff's department, which has instituted extensive
employee retraining conducted by a Texas consulting firm.

Ellington said the barrage of lawsuits may spur more litigation by
people with no legitimate claims.

"Who wouldn't jump on the bandwagon now?'' he asked