Former manager accuses Sheriff McFadden of asking her to alter expenses

CHARLOTTE — A former Mecklenburg County sheriff’s manager is accusing Sheriff Garry McFadden of asking her to alter expenses.

Angelica Riggsbee was a business manager at the Department of Social Services for seven years before working for McFadden. She has a 35-year career and said she had never been fired before but that changed this week.

“So, I came in very excited about the new opportunity and I loved the staff,” Riggsbee said.

In March, Riggsbee was hired as the director of business operations at the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.

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She was fired this week.

“But the way it happened I was humiliated. I was speechless,” she said.

Riggsbee said she was given an order from an underling of McFadden that she could not obey.

Angelica Riggsbee, a former business manager at the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office

It was concerning a Freedom of Information Act request from Channel 9′s partners at The Charlotte Observer about travel expenses submitted for McFadden’s out-of-town trips.

“They couldn’t get any clearer than for someone to say he does not want all of that to go. He doesn’t want to submit that. He wants it changed,” Riggsbee said. “(The other employee) said ‘McFadden said get Riggsbee to do that.’ I then said ‘Oh, Riggsby is not going to do that.’”

Channel 9 reached out to the sheriff’s office for a response which denied that anything unethical had taken place.

“McFadden preferred the Excel document format on expenses which is why the comment was made about his reluctance to submit it,” the sheriff’s office stated.

He also said the document “lacked sufficient detail so additional information was added to the highlighted areas without altering the cost.”

“I’m not going to doctor up documents or anything coming out of a financial system that’s going to be a public records request or anything because, as an accounting professional, you don’t do that. That’s unethical,” Riggsbee said.

Even though Riggsbee didn’t work for the sheriff for very long, she said the environment is toxic.

“We saw rants and raving every Monday at 9 o’clock in those executive staff meetings,” she said. “People are going to be insulted. People are going to be attacked verbally. People are going to be berated.”

Riggsbee said she is concerned about the employees she left behind. She has hired an attorney and intends to sue the sheriff.

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