Officer Jackie Hollingsworth says she has receipts to back up her claims that the money intended for the youth center went back into the youth center, but Chief Robert White wasn't convinced of that and Hollingsworth was fired on Friday. Chief White said "It made no sense to be that she should continue to be an officer on this police department."
Chief White said he had questions about how Jackie Hollingsworth handled money. She was accused of taking thousands of dollars from the Black Police Officers Organization that was to be used for a new youth center on Floyd Street. Chief White says he could have fired her long ago after this investigation. Her termination letter says she was fired for being untruthful about expenditures for a youth event at Central High School not related to the Black Officers Organization, and for interfering with police duties during a motorcycle event in 2008.
One investigative report showed that she paid her personal LG&E account with money from the Black Officers Organization and wrote a $5,000 check to herself from that same account. Hollingsworth says that's not true. She says she paid her son $1,000 out of the account, but that he worked for it just as anyone else would have.
Hollingsworth is the second officer fired in the last two weeks from LMPD. Ronald Russ was fired after a drug investigation involving Jack Conway's brother. Another officer, Crystal Marlow, could find out this week what will happen to her. She's accused of falsely charging people with crimes.
Chief White says it's just coincidence that these cases are all coming to a head at once and says it has nothing to do with a new mayor taking over in January.