MILLERSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Sumner County District Attorney Ray Whitley says he wasn't consulted before Millersville Police arrested former mayor, Tim Lassiter, on two counts of document fraud.
Whitley says he only learned about Lassiter’s arrest the next morning, and as of Wednesday afternoon, had yet to discuss the operation or case with anyone at Millersville.
When asked if his office would be involved in prosecuting Lassiter’s case, Whitley said he wasn't sure, and followed up by saying, “It’s all very strange.”
Millersville city attorney Bryant Kroll told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that he's already contacted the state attorney general's office about bringing in a special prosecutor to handle the case.
Kroll took us through the building where roughly two months ago, the halls of Millersville’s fire department would have been filled with firefighters preparing for emergencies.
Now, beds have been removed, and signs warn that the building may not be safe.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates was at Tuesday night’s Millersville commission meeting when police announced “Operation Clean Sweep” for the first time.
That’s where we heard assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor say the city was now facing a massive bill to bring the fire department back up to code.
“We spent a very large amount of money on having this built out and it was not done correctly,” Taylor said.
Three hours after Taylor announced possible arrests, Millersville Police arrived at Lassiter’s door.
Lassiter was taken into custody on charges of tampering with governmental records and criminal simulation. In other words, document fraud.
Kroll says this all happened while Lassiter was working for the city’s Codes department after he stepped down as mayor in 2022.
“We found that building permits were issued by Tim Lassiter to Tim Lassiter in violation of the codes and violation of the law,” Kroll said.
Kroll says Lassiter didn’t have the authority to go into the system and issue himself a permit. He says commissioners told Lassiter he couldn’t do this, but the project to renovate the fire department was finished anyway.
Kroll says Lassiter may have also been involved in building out the city’s evidence room in the same way. It’s not clear why not enough red flags were raised until after these projects were complete, but Kroll says more arrests are on the way with names we may recognize.
“There are some people here ,that have been involved with issues, who have already been reported on,” Kroll said.
Millersville commissioner Cristina Templet was at the jail Tuesday night with Lassiter’s family and told us she believes this was a personal vendetta by acting mayor Tommy Long against the man he replaced.
“I feel like the mayor has taken his vendettas and he’s using taxpayer dollars to pursue that,” Templet said.
Templet went on to say, "Tim is an amazing human being. His wife is an amazing human being and I think what the city of Millersville has done to him is disgusting."
Lassiter was one of many city officials who stepped down from their positions following a lawsuit filed against the city in 2022.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of two former Millersville Police officers claimed they were bullied out of a job and faced racial discrimination.
Lassiter told NewsChannel 5 Investigates at the time that he based his decision to step down on personal reasons with his family and nothing more.
When we asked Kroll about Lassiter's arrest being politically motivated, he said that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“This wasn’t politically motivated. This is about holding people accountable for the crimes that they’ve committed and it’s going to cost the city more money,” Kroll said.
Millersville is already rebuilding, having lost almost all the firefighters in a walkout this past February to protest the termination of fire chief Brandon Head.
More shakeups at the top — with several other department heads being fired in a matter of weeks — only complicated matters.
Kroll says Millersville not only deserves a fire department that’s up to code, but they also deserve accountability.
“Accountability is what the citizens want and this is what accountability looks like. It looks like arrest warrants being executed,” Kroll said.
What has happened in Millersville?
Millersville — its government and police — has become a complex story I have been covering for more than four years.
This started in 2020 when Millersville officers accused the then-chief of evidence tampering. Then, two officers sued the city and the police chief in 2021.
As a result, the mayor stepped down and other city officials — including the police chief named in the lawsuit.
After the shakeup in the police department, I discovered that the next chief and assistant chief were working illegally as laid out by the Tennessee POST Commission. Investigators confirmed timesheet issues, which showed they were working less than were allowed. At the time, the chief and assistant chief were just part-time officers. They both resigned.
This is when the elements in this story happen in quick succession.
Just after I did a story about them swearing in another new police chief — who moved from Texas to take the job — the Millersville City Commission fired the city manager. That city manager they fired signed off on the timesheets created by the officers who working more time than they should.
An interim city manager was put in place. Her name is Tina Tobin.
Tobin — who I figured out didn't have a background in city government — went on to fire the new police chief from Texas, the chief of the fire department and the city attorney. In response to the firing of the fire chief, 17 fire personnel walked off the job leaving the city in limbo for emergency service calls.
While Tobin was serving as interim, candidates for the full time job started coming into the city. One name was familiar in Gabrielle Hanson. She's the woman who ran for City of Franklin, where my colleague Phil Williams tracked her through the mayoral election. Hanson, who lost her bid for Franklin mayor last year after a series of controversies that included her ties to white supremacists, said her interest in the city manager position began after a recent trip to help relocate an industrial real estate client to Millersville.
After learning the candidates for city manager, I looked at Tobin's current resume, which showed she had no experience running a city and didn’t even live in Millersville. That story was published on Friday. She resigned on a Sunday.
Now, the newest police chief is the interim city manager.
