A top East Baton Rouge mayoral aide has resigned, a spokesman for the administration said, after city leaders received emails claiming she struck another parish official with a chair.
Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome's office won't say why Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Courtney Scott left.
"The employee you are inquiring about submitted their resignation earlier this month," spokesman Mark Armstrong said. "Please refer any other personnel inquiries to the parish attorney's office."
The parish attorney's office declined to provide h with any disciplinary records for Scott, saying “we have been informed that this is still under investigation and therefore not subject to public record at this time.”
It's not clear what kind of investigation was underway. But emails obtained by h through another public records request show the mayor's office and Metro Council members received several complaints earlier this summer that Scott allegedly struck Walter “Geno” McLaughlin, a community activist and member of Baton Rouge's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, in the head with a chair at Baton Rouge's Sky Lounge on June 18.
Scott did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
McLaughlin has not returned h's requests for comment and the owner of the Sky Lounge declined to comment.
Baton Rouge police dispatch records show no calls were made to Sky Lounge the week the incident reportedly occurred.
On Wednesday, East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore said he is not aware of any criminal investigation into Scott.
Broome and several Metro Council members forwarded the emailed complaints to other city employees, the records show. On June 20, Broome forwarded the messages about the purported incident to her chief administrative officer, Dante Bidwell.
Over the past few weeks — before the denial of the records request cited an investigation — Broome's office declined multiple times to say whether Scott was still working for her, referring questions to the parish attorney's office.
Scott — a Baton Rouge native — joined the mayor’s administration in 2018, first serving as chief service officer before being promoted to the assistant CAO position in 2020. The latest publicly available employee database shows her base salary as $129,404.
In recent years, Scott has worked on violence prevention initiatives carried out by Broome's office, like the one she spoke to the New York Times about for in April.
