Fort Worth City Council members approved up to $100,000 in legal fees for an outside lawyer to represent the city in a complicated whistleblower lawsuit that appeared to have been settled in 2024 for $850,000.
The council, on a motion by member Carlos Flores at their Tuesday meeting, unanimously approved the payment to attorney Courtney Perez of the BakerHostetler firm.
Council members in April 2024 approved what the city then said was an $850,000 settlement with former employee Trisa Crutcher, who had filed a whistleblower suit alleging violations in the Fort Worth Police Crime Lab, where she worked as a forensic scientist.
Crutcher, as a crime lab employee, filed a 174-page whistleblower complaint in 2020. The city fired her in 2021, according to the appellate court’s ruling. The same year, the Texas Commission on Forensic Science affirmed policy violations had occurred but concluded they didn’t rise to level of misconduct.
She filed two lawsuits — one in 2020 and another in 2023 — claiming she was retaliated against for reporting the violations. The suits were then consolidated and went to mediation.
Crutcher subsequently contended she didn’t agree to the 2024 settlement. The state Court of Appeals at the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas agreed with her in March, referring to the settlement as “alleged” and remanding the case to the 193rd State District Court in Dallas.
The city, however, has already paid the $850,000 to a court registry, according to the appellate...
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