Probe found Warren Turner made sexual comments in 2008. Now, he wants back on City Council

A former Charlotte City Council member found to have made sexually inappropriate comments to a city employee is among those looking to fill an open seat on the council this fall.

Warren Turner, who represented District 3 from 2003 to 2011, is running again to serve the west Charlotte district. His return to local politics comes more than a decade after he was voted out of office in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal.

An outside law firm, at the City Council’s request, looked into allegations of harassment by a city employee in 2010. It found evidence in support of some allegations and wasn’t able to corroborate others.

He was fired from his probation officer job in 2010 in an unrelated investigation, but that firing was overturned.

In response to an Observer interview request Wednesday, Turner’s campaign manager Toni Emehel directed a reporter to past Observer coverage of the candidate.

“Put simply, these questions have been asked and answered,” Emehel said, referencing Turner’s reinstatement to his corrections department job. “... As his campaign manager, I am seriously concerned about the adverse impact that the attempts to reopen this closed chapter of unfounded allegations will have on Warren’s family. Thus, I humbly ask you to review what has already been published by the Charlotte Observer at the close of these issues and report from that.”

In a follow-up response Wednesday, Emehel said Turner could speak with a reporter Thursday, but did not respond to a reply seeking a time for that interview.

Multiple incidents of sexual harassment investigated

The results of the outside investigation into Turner were presented to the City Council in April 2010.

Turner was accused by a city employee of sexual harassment for a 2008 incident that sparked a broader inquiry. The employee said Turner saw a coffee mug on her desk featuring a picture of a male actor, and he asked her who the mug pictured. When the employee responded “That’s my motivation,” investigator Valecia McDowell recounted, “Turner then smiled and said, ‘You don’t need that. I should be your motivation. You need a real man to be your motivation.’”

Investigators said Turner then called out to another city employee and said “‘Isn’t it right,’ meaning isn’t it right that I should be your motivation,” McDowell continued. Turner allegedly went on to say, “She needs a real man to be her motivation.”

The investigation said Turner asked the employee where she went to college. He allegedly responded, “See, that’s your problem right there. You don’t have any real men at those schools. Your real motivation is right here.”

The employee reported the incident to her supervisor, McDowell said, who brought it to the attention of the city manager and head of the city’s Human Resources department at the time. The human resources head told investigators he didn’t talk to Turner about it at the time because the employee didn’t want to take action.

Turner denied those claims to investigators and said he wasn’t made aware of them until March 2010, McDowell told the council.

The incident “almost certainly rises to the level of sexual harassment under the city policy,” McDowell concluded.

According to the investigation, the same employee alleged Turner in 2008 told her after briefly meeting her then-fiancé, “The guy you introduced me to, did you say he was your fiancé? I need to know who would marry you. He needs to come and talk to me so that I can give him advice on how to deal with you.”

Turner told investigators he never met the employee’s then-fiancébut acknowledged he called fellow Councilman James “Smuggie” Mitchell surprised after seeing the employee with her fiancé. Turner told Mitchell he thought the employee was a lesbian, Mitchell confirmed to investigators.

Given the totality of the allegations against Turner, McDowell said, investigators concluded the alleged comments “were more likely than not of a sexual nature, and, therefore, harassing under the city’s harassment policy.”

The third alleged incident took place in 2009 when the employee saw Turner in Mitchell’s office while she was delivering copies. Then, the employee alleged, Turner responded to her question about whether he needed her by saying, “No, I just wanted to make sure you were doing your job” and “turned and reached out and pulled at her sweater at waist level” as she left the room, McDowell told the council.

The employee told investigators Mitchell called her after and said he saw what Turner did and thought it inappropriate. Turner denied the incident to investigators, and Mitchell denied seeing anything happen.

“Although the investigators were unable to reach a conclusion as to whether the third alleged incident occurred, we conclude that, if it occurred, it was sexually harassing in nature,” McDowell said.

Additionally, McDowell said, three other female city employees “complained of, claimed to witness or otherwise corroborated allegations of sexual or gender inappropriate conduct” by Turner during his time in office.

And, McDowell said in her report to the council, Turner was accused of attempting to interfere with the investigation — a claim he denied.

Then-council members said they had no mechanism to discipline Turner in connection with the investigation other than a censure, according to minutes from the April 2010 meeting.

“The council/manager form of government has served the city well for a long time, but in this instance, there was a gap, and there is no policy that applies to the City Council as it relates to situations like this, and yet we have the capacity to create a liability to the city,” then-Mayor Anthony Foxx said at the meeting. “It is a gap that I think all of us are committed to filling.”

The council elected not to censure Turner, the Observer reported previously, by a vote of 6-3.

Department of Corrections firing overturned

In addition to the investigation launched by the City Council, Turner was investigated by the North Carolina Department of Corrections, where he worked as a probation officer.

That investigation led to Turner being dismissed from his job in July 2010.

The corrections department said its investigation found no evidence of inappropriate conduct towards women in Turner’s work but that he “didn’t follow directives from his chain of command,” the Observer reported at the time.

Turner missed meetings or drug screenings with at least 14 probationers, the corrections department alleged at the time, falsified at least one home visit record and conducted city business while on state time despite being warned not to do so.

But Turner appealed his firing shortly after it happened, with his lawyer at the time calling the corrections department’s reasoning for Turner’s dismissal “procedural BS.”

He reached a settlement with the department and was reinstated in 2012. Under the settlement, Turner received back pay from the time of his firing and $10,000 in legal fees, the Observer reported previously.

Turner “was cleared of the allegations” and “went on to work more than a decade before retiring as a Chief Probation Officer with more than 30 years of consecutive service,” his campaign said Wednesday. He listed his occupation on the Charlotte Observer’s 2023 candidate survey as “retired.”

Turner’s electoral history

Turner was first elected to the Charlotte City Council in 2003 and served four terms.

After losing his seat in 2011 to Lawana Slack-Mayfield, now an at-large council member, Turner again ran unsuccessfully in 2015 to represent District 3.

Current District 3 representative Victoria Watlington is seeking an at-large council seat in the 2023 municipal elections. Two other Democrats are also running for the district’s Democratic nomination, Tiawana Brown and Melinda Lilly. Whoever secures the nomination will face Republican James Harrison Bowers in November’s general election.

Early voting began in the primaries Aug. 24 and runs through Sept. 9. Primary election day is Sept. 12.