Internal investigation leads to firings at Iosco County Sheriff’s Office | Local

TAWAS CITY, Michigan (WJRT) – Three people with the Iosco County Sheriff’s Department recently lost their jobs.

District officials are not disclosing the reasons for the disciplinary action, and ABC 12 has been trying to get answers for several days.

ABC 12 has contacted Sheriff Scott Frank several times in the last few days but has not received a response.

Some of the answers were announced during the Iosco County Board of Commissioners meeting on Wednesday.

Iosco County Sheriff Scott Frank walked out of the Board of Commissioners meeting when we tried to speak with him about why three Sheriff’s Department employees were either fired or resigned. He declined our request for an on-camera interview.

Off camera, Frank confirmed that a sheriff’s department employee filed a complaint on May 14, which led to an internal investigation. He declined to disclose the nature of the complaint.

Following that complaint, a correctional officer resigned a month later, on June 14. However, County Controller and Finance Director Jamie Carruthers-Soboleski says his resignation had nothing to do with the internal investigation.

“We had an employee who resigned because of another incident,” she says.

Then, on June 20, a correctional officer who also worked as an animal control officer was fired.

“Following an internal investigation, we terminated an employee who is currently in the grievance process with POAM (Police Officers Association of Michigan). Our employment attorney has advised us not to comment further,” says Carruthers-Soboleski.

The following day, June 21, another employee was fired in connection with the internal investigation.

“We also had a clerk from our sheriff’s department whose employment was terminated during her probationary period,” she says.

We asked County Commissioner Brian Loeffler about the situation.

“I was informed of it this morning,” Loeffler said. “But now it’s a union matter and I can’t talk about it.”

Although Loeffler declined to comment on the exact events that led to the dismissals and resignations, she is not overly worried.

“No, I think the sheriff has done a good job for us in the past, and I think he’s probably doing a good job now,” he says.

Police Officers Association of Michigan sales representative Jim Cross confirms that the employees he represents have been disciplined for what he believes are policy and procedure violations, but again, it is not clear what those violations were.