Nashville Mayor Megan Barry Resigns After Pleading Guilty To Theft

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry (D) has resigned from office after pleading guilty on Tuesday to felony theft of property over $10,000 after being accused of misusing public funds during an affair with a former police bodyguard.

Barry’s plea came with an agreement to reimburse the city $11,000 and serve three years’ unsupervised probation for the misuse of city funds between March 2016 and January 2018, prosecutors said. If she completes the agreement, the charges can be dismissed and expunged.

Former Metropolitan Nashville Police Department Sgt. Robert Forrest, who was accused of financially benefiting from the affair with Barry and resigned shortly after, also pleaded guilty to criminal theft on Tuesday, the Tennessean reported. He agreed to pay $45,000 restitution to the city.

A charging document, obtained by the Tennessean, did not detail how Barry’s restitution was calculated. The couple’s relationship, however, had sparked concern on whether Forrest’s six-digit overtime pay over the last three years was legitimate and whether their affair factored into her decision not to support a civilian review board of the force.


Source : huffingtonpost