Fulton County Superior Court Judge Alford Dempsey recently denied the Georgia Lottery’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Kenneth Knight, former vice president for financial management, who said he was pressured to present flawed sales projections to the lottery board in April 2014 and subsequently was terminated. Dempsey said Knight’s whistleblower lawsuit should go to trial.
In his lawsuit, Knight said he told his boss, Georgia Lottery President Debbie Alford, the numbers were incorrect but he was forced to present them to the board anyway. He said one week later he was let go from his job “because of events that took place in March and April of 2014 during the budget process which resulted in misleading information being distributed to our CEO and board of directors,” the lawsuit says.
Knight said Alford knowingly presented the board with inflated figures, “an act by her that is both unethical and illegal, and which was motivated solely by unlawful political influence.” He sued the Georgia Lottery in 2015. Lottery officials said it was “baseless” and claimed Knight was fired “because his superiors lost confidence in his ability to fulfill” the job.
In his decision, Dempsey wrote that Knight had “exemplary” performance reviews in his job and that a jury should decide the issue. Knight’s lawyer, Kim Worth, had no comment but Georgia Lottery Legal Counsel and Senior Vice President Joe Kim said, “We certainly respect the court’s decision.”
