Worker punished after reporting Florida city hired registered sex offender, lawsuit says

A south Florida city punished its assistant director of parks and recreation after she reported the city hired a man who is a registered sex offender in the state, a new lawsuit says.

After Aladia Franks learned Riviera Beach’s athletic director Abram Elam was a registered sex offender, she disclosed this to city officials — and that Elam may have been hired in violation of the city’s policies and state law, according to her lawsuit filed Oct. 2.

Elam — a Riviera Beach native and former NFL player who has played for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets, Cleveland Browns and Kansas City Chiefs — became an outside consultant athletic director for the city after signing a $25,000 contract, according to WPBF, which first reported Franks’ lawsuit on Oct. 9.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement lists Elam as a sex offender after he was convicted in 2003 of a crime involving an adult female victim, a search of the agency’s records show.

Two days after Franks reported Elam’s sex offender status to city officials in an email, she was fired from her position on Aug. 4 and demoted to a different position, special events manager, a complaint filed in Palm Beach County says. The special events manager position “did not exist” previously, according to the complaint.

Franks was then reassigned to “an office that had no desk, no phone, no computer and no work assignments” and “had her schedule changed,” the complaint says.

She is suing Riviera Beach, accusing the city of violating her rights under the Florida Whistleblower’s Act and retaliating against her with the demotion, the complaint shows.

She is seeking at least $50,000 in damages and wants to be reinstated as the city’s assistant director of parks and recreation, according to the lawsuit.

“Ms. Franks was punished for reporting her employer violated the law in hiring Mr. Elam to this position,” her attorney Isidro M. Garcia, of Garcia Law Firm PA in West Palm Beach, said in a statement provided to McClatchy News on Oct. 10.

“Employees may not be punished for making this type of disclosure,” Garcia added.

McClatchy News contacted Riviera Beach officials for comment on Oct. 10 and didn’t receive an immediate response. Direct contact information for Elam wasn’t immediately available on Oct. 10.

More on the lawsuit

Riviera Beach’s youth football and cheerleading travel squads are contractually affiliated with Pop Warner, a nonprofit youth football, cheerleading and dance organization with programs in states nationwide, according to the complaint. Franks was the president and compliance officer for the city’s youth travel squads, the complaint says.

Pop Warner requires background checks of all participants in its program, according to the complaint.

This past summer, the organization requested “yearly background checks of all employees,” including Elam, WPBF reported.

Afterward, Franks learned no background check was conducted on Elam before he was hired, according to WPBF.

In an Aug. 2 email to city officials with a subject line titled “URGENT” and “PLEASE ADVISE,” Franks disclosed Elam’s sex offender status and wrote “I have a responsibility to report it to each of you,” according to the email attached to the complaint.

Then, she was terminated from her position with the city and demoted to a new position, the complaint says.

At a City Council meeting in August, Riviera Beach Mayor Ronnie Felder spoke in defense of Elam and his hiring, according to CBS12.

“I will fight for him till the end,” Felder said. “I think it’s disappointing people will go to the limbs to try to kill his name and kill his character.”

Elam’s registered sex offender status stems from a sexual battery conviction involving a woman while he was a student at Notre Dame in 2002, according to media reports.

At the time, a woman accused four Notre Dame football players, including Elam, of “luring her into a bedroom in March 2002” and said she was raped, according to an October 2003 Associated Press report published by ESPN. Charges against two men were ultimately dropped, one was found innocent, and Elam was convicted of sexual battery, the Associated Press reported.

Elam was sentenced to two years of probation and was expelled from the university before he later played for the NFL, Bleacher Report reported.

After his career in the NFL, Elam returned to Riviera Beach and has hosted coaching clinics and football camps, WPTV reported.

According to Franks’ lawsuit, the city potentially violated its own policy — which “requires any person who works with children in a program operated by (Riviera Beach) to have a background check and clearance” — by hiring Elam without a background check, the complaint says.

While speaking with WPBF in August, Elam told the TV station he’s not involved in the Pop Warner league, is employed by the city and is not “dealing with kids day to day.”

Brittany Collins, a spokeswoman for Riviera Beach manager Jonathan Evans, told WPBF that Elam is not the city’s athletic director as of Oct. 9.

Meanwhile, Franks is still “involuntarily transferred to a different position,” Garcia told McClatchy News.

Her lawsuit seeks to recover “lost wages and benefits” as well as “compensatory damages for mental anguish, loss of reputation” and more, the complaint shows.

She is demanding a trial by jury.

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