NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Councilwoman Joy Kimbrough was cleared of any wrongdoing Monday after a daylong hearing before Metro's Ethical Conduct Board.
Many in the audience clapped and cheered loudly after board members voted 4 to 0 to dismiss a complaint against Kimbrough.
Nearly nine hours earlier, these supporters and Kimbrough got off a bus she'd chartered to the Metro Courthouse for this hearing, many of them wearing t-shirts that said, "I've Got Joy."
The daylong hearing opened with an unusual twist as Kimbrough's attorney allowed her to make their opening statement where she defiantly insisted she'd done nothing wrong.
The first then to testify under oath was Nashville businessman Ryan Moses, the one who had filed the ethics complaint and he described the three minute phone call back in April where he claimed Kimbrough demanded $500,000 to support his plan to build his liquor distribution warehouse in her district.
The board chair, Diane Diianni, though who took over the witness questioning frequently during the hearing took issue with Moses for leading Kimbrough to believe he'd recorded the call when he had not.
While the ethics complaint focused on what was said during that phone call, Kimbrough's attorney instead chose to call a series of witnesses with no direct knowledge of the call who spent several hoursdescribing how little support for the project there had been in the community.
And while Kimbrough was not on the witness list, in a surprise move, she ended up being the closing witness and again, insisted that she never asked Moses for money.
But on cross-examination, Kimbrough claimed she couldn't remember specifics of the call.
Attorney Ed Yarbrough then responded, "If you can't recall then you can't deny."
The Board then discussed what they'd heard from both sides and voiced how challenging this he said, she said case was.
And in the end, board members said their decision to dismiss the complaint boiled down to credibility and a lack of evidence.
And despite Kimbrough's victory before the board, after their vote, Kimbrough was not interested in talking about it.
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