CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - The lawsuit was filed in January, and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's office is waiting to be served with legal papers.
Two former employees, Ivan McLaughlin and Timothy Stanley, claim they were unfairly terminated by Sheriff Daniel "Chipp" Bailey for failing to contribute to his reelection campaign.
The sheriff denies the allegations.
"I've got 14 hundred employees and I can say with some confidence not everybody supported me, and certainly not everybody contributed to the campaign," Bailey said.
It was Christopher Hailey who took on the incumbent Bailey back in 2010.
Court documents say the two plaintiffs who worked in arrest processing and as detention officers at the jail.
The documents also say the men were friends with Hailey and backed his campaign.
Bailey cannot legally talk about the job performance at the jail of his former employees.
Both McLaughlin and Stanley say they were given high marks in performance reviews before being dismissed.
The attorney handling the case is Harold Kennedy of Winston Salem.
He did not return our calls, but Bailey who is being sued in excess of five million dollars says removing the jail employees had nothing to do with a political race, but rather not cooperating with departmental procedures.
"When someone does something that violates policies and rules and regulations of the sheriff's office," Bailey said." The sheriff has the right to terminate them."
The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial. No court date has been set.
Copyright 2012 WBTV.
