Former SC DJJ deputy director says agency fired him after he reported ‘serious wrongdoing’
A former high-ranking official with South Carolina’s juvenile justice department claims he was sidelined and eventually fired last year after raising concerns about the direction of the troubled agency.
Brett Macgargle, a 25-year employee of the Department of Juvenile Justice who had served as senior deputy director since 2015, alleges his former employer terminated him last August for blowing the whistle on “serious wrongdoing” and “violations of the law,” according to a lawsuit filed recently in the Richland County Court of Common Pleas.
The longtime state employee claims he butted heads with former Director Freddie Pough, who failed to heed his advice on a number of critical matters and transferred nearly all of his job duties to a new, less qualified employee, according to the suit.
He alleges Pough resented his cooperation with state and federal authorities investigating the agency and his pushback against certain department policies, including some that later came to light in a scathing legislative audit that proved to be the former director’s downfall.
The Department of Juvenile Justice has denied Macgargle’s claims.
The former senior deputy director’s complaint comes on the heels of a wrongful termination suit lodged in December by Lt. Ricky Dyckes, a former senior DJJ employee who alleged he was let go in retaliation for publicly airing his grievances with the agency.
Dyckes, who participated in an employee walkout at the department’s Broad River Road Complex last June and later testified before a legislative panel about the poor working conditions faced by juvenile correctional officers, was fired last August, according to his lawsuit.
Macgargle’s employment with the agency came to an end around the same time.
The former DJJ official claims he was approached Aug. 6, a few days after he asked to be reassigned to the agency’s long-term detention facility, and offered the option of resigning or being terminated.
At that point, he’d already shared his concerns about Pough’s leadership and some of the department’s practices with the U.S. Department of Justice, a state senator on the Legislative Oversight Committee and representatives from the Department of Administration who were conducting a review of the agency at the governor’s request, according to the complaint.
Macgargle opted for resignation, but later rescinded the decision and subsequently was terminated by the agency.
His wrongful termination suit ties his discharge directly to his whistleblowing activity and seeks his reinstatement to the agency with back pay and $15,000 in damages.
DJJ claims firing was due to performance
Juvenile Justice officials vehemently denied the former deputy director’s allegations, asserting in court filings that Macgargle was fired for gross incompetence, not in retaliation for his whistleblowing.
“(Macgargle’s) poor performance — and nothing else — was the cause of his termination,” an attorney for the agency wrote in response to the suit.
A copy of Macgargle’s termination letter, which the department attached to its legal filing, details a litany of alleged operational and oversight failures, and blames the former deputy director for exacerbating some of the agency’s most serious deficiencies.
It accuses Macgargle, whom it says oversaw human resources, fiscal affairs and support services, of failing to adequately address the agency’s severe staffing shortage, mismanaging finances and allowing the department’s facilities to fall into disrepair.
The dismissal letter also castigates Macgargle for allegedly hiring someone who had been convicted of assaulting a minor, calling the decision an “inexcusable” lapse in judgment.
Macgargle disputes the allegations in the termination letter, which his attorney said were simply pretext for the agency’s true, unlawful motives for his termination.
In contrast to the agency’s depiction of Macgargle, the suit describes him as a dedicated employee with extensive institutional knowledge of the department who continued to push for reform despite having lost Pough’s ear.
Macgargle claims he resisted the former director’s controversial relocation of more than 100 employees to an office park away from the detention facility, advocated for raising officers’ pay using carry-forward funds and opposed the agency’s sanitization of serious incident reports to no avail.
In addition to questioning Pough’s judgment and leadership of the agency, the suit also accuses the former director of lying under oath during his testimony last year before a Senate panel and of threatening employees with reorganization if they did not support him during those contentious legislative hearings.
Pough, who resigned under pressure last September and now works as a senior special agent with the State Law Enforcement Division, declined comment on his former deputy’s accusations and directed all questions to an attorney with the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Gene Matthews, an attorney representing the department, said the agency strongly disagreed with the lawsuit’s assertions and planned to mount a vigorous defense.
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 3:59 PM.