© 2024 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Jury Awards Former Arson Investigator $1.5 Million Over Termination

Charlotte Observer
Crystal Eschert (right) talks to reporters.

Jurors found that the City of Charlotte retaliated against Crystal Eschert by terminating her because she raised concerns to a city council member about the conditions of a new city office building. 

They awarded her $1.5 million. The city maintains it was over a Facebook post, officials considered discriminatory and inflammatory. Ten days after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Eschert posted on her private Facebook page:

So tired it's a racial thing. If you are a thug and worthless to society, it's not race – you're just a waste no matter what religion, race or sex you are.  

Eschert was an arson investigator. The city terminated her in September 2014. 

Lisa Worf traded the Midwest for Charlotte in 2006 to take a job at WFAE. She worked with public TV in Detroit and taught English in Austria before making her way to radio. Lisa graduated from University of Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in English.