Much of the testimony Tuesday in the Dareadell Terrell Thompson vs. the City of Meridian wrongful termination case held in United States District Court, Southern District of Mississippi, Eastern Division in Meridian centered on worker’s compensation checks received and deposited by Thompson.

    The question to be answered and considered by eight jurors was whether Thompson, a Meridian Police Department officer at the time, tried to defraud Travelers Insurance Group, the company tasked with issuing worker’s compensation checks to Meridian employees. Tupelo attorney Jim Wade, Thompson’s counsel, spent much of the day trying to convince the jurors Thompson was errantly issued the check and unknowingly, the check was deposited in his account. Once Thompson was notified by Traveler’s the check was sent, Wade said Thompson sent a check for the amount back. Thompson himself took the stand late Tuesday to explain what happened.

    “My wife got the check and thought it was for an injury I was already getting compensated for so she deposited it,” said Thompson. “Once we were notified of the problem by Traveler’s, I sent a check back to them.”

    In an email revealed during testimony, it was noted Traveler’s did get the check and considered the matter closed. But according to Michael Wolf, who is leading the team representing the City of Meridian, the worker’s compensation check was but one of many factors in terminating Thompson from the Meridian Police Department by Chief Lee Shelbourn on Feb. 26, 2010.

    Mark McDonald, who served as the chief administrative officer for the City of Meridian from July 2009 until September 2011, said dating back to December 2006 when a complaint was filed alleging Thompson and five other officers were involved in an excessive force arrest on a Meridian man, a pattern began to emerge.

    This 2006 complaint led to a lawsuit against the city that was eventually dropped.

    Wolf produced documents from Civil Service Commission findings that pointed to other incidents, namely, those involving Thompson that included the forging of a justice court judges and MPD detective’s signatures to obtain his wife’s phone records, unlawful entry into a home outside his jurisdiction as an officer, the alleged defrauding of Traveler’s Insurance Group and a taser incident inside the MPD.

    “The civil service code says termination is justified when a succession of unacceptable behavior is observed,” said McDonald. “We saw a ‘pattern of misconduct’ over the years and that is what we based this termination on.”

    Thompson appealed his termination with the Meridian Civil Service Commission, and was reinstated to the police force in February 2010. On Feb. 15 of that year Thompson’s attorney filed a complaint with the Civil Service Commission, however, stating his client had not been given all the city promised him.

    The proceedings continue today.