Court papers filed Friday in the dispute between Charlotte's United Way and its ex-CEO show the agency has been arguing in recent months with Gloria Pace King over "large and questionable expenses" and her right to keep a leased car.
King was fired by the agency last year after a controversy erupted over a $1.2 million pay package given to her by the agency's executive committee.
In documents filed in state court earlier this week, King claims race discrimination, breach of contract and personal and professional defamation.
Along with the agency, defendants include board members Carlos Evans, Edward Curran, Graham Denton, Anthony Fox, Paul Franz and Jeffrey Kane.
The United Way filed papers in federal court Friday asking that the dispute be moved from the state courts to federal courts.
Included as attachments to that motion were the state court papers attorney Bill Diehl filed on King's behalf. Those papers also included a sometimes-testy exchange of letters between King's attorney, Bill Diehl and United Way attorney Russ Sizemore, who did not mince words over the causes for King's firing. In a letter to Diehl dated Nov. 11, Sizemore notes that King had been holding on to the Infiniti automobile leased for her by the agency, even after her firing.
He also said the agency was continuing to investigate "large and questionable expenses" that were poorly or defectively documented.
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