Mayor Barry recommended city job for daughter of officer with whom she had affair

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misidentified what city department Doug Sloan led while Amos was assigned to work there.

Within months of taking office, Mayor Megan Barry recommended the adult daughter of the head of her security detail — the man with whom she later admitted to having an affair — be hired for a job in the city’s legal department.

The daughter got the job.

The position as an entry-level city attorney was the first newly created job in Nashville's legal department in two years. It was not part of the existing budget. Barry approved the new job opening. No other candidate was considered.

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Metro Law Department Director Jon Cooper said it was his decision, not the mayor's, to hire Macy Amos, who was at that time a recent graduate of Belmont University College of Law. Amos, 26, had interned with previous mayors Bill Purcell and Karl Dean.

"The mayor did recommend Macy during a meeting I had with her at some point, as did a number of people in the legal community," Cooper said in an email.

Amos was the "logical choice" for the job, Cooper said. She was hired in January 2016.

Barry admitted to an extramarital affair with Amos' father, Sgt. Rob Forrest Jr. It is unclear whether the mayor abused her power to weigh in on the hiring decision.

The Democratic mayor has given vague and conflicting responses to questions about when the relationship began with Forrest, a city employee and her subordinate.

Barry told the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee the affair began in the spring of 2016 — months after Amos was hired. At a press conference last week, Barry told reporters the relationship began "several months" after she became mayor in September 2015. She told a television station the affair began "soon" after she took office.

She has declined to say when it ended.

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Ethics experts say that whether the Mayor made the recommendation during her romantic relationship, or in its prelude, her involvement in a hiring decision may constitute a misuse of her office.

"There's a general norm and principle that people should not use their office for private advantage, including for those you associate with," said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and chair of the Conflicts of Interest Board of New York City.

"It turns on whether something is for her private advantage — what she was getting out of it. If getting something out of it would be satisfying an intimate partner, it's a misuse of office, period."

Barry's recommendation of Forrest's daughter for a city job may also have violated the ethics rules she signed when taking office.

A February 2016 executive order issued by Barry, a former ethics and compliance officer, bars city employees from "giving preferential treatment to any person," losing "impartiality," or "affecting adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of Metropolitan government."

"That's why we place constraints on individuals, in part to constrain them from doing anything unethical and in part to retain the public trust," Briffault said.

Barry, through a spokesman, initially did not respond to a question about whether she was romantically involved with Forrest at the time of Amos' hire.

After the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee report on the mayor's recommendation to hire Amos, her spokesman Sean Braisted said in an email: "Just to clarify, Mayor Barry was not having an affair with Sgt. Forrest when Macy Amos was interviewed, hired, or started working for Metro."

Braisted did not directly respond to other questions that included when the mayor met Amos or whether she viewed her involvement as a conflict of interest.

Instead, he sent a statement that said Amos was recommended by many inside and outside city government.

"Macy Amos is an exemplary employee who earned her job because of her qualifications and passion for Metro Government," the statement also said.

Forrest, through his attorney David Raybin, declined to comment.

The hire

Amos met all the qualifications for a newly created position as a member of the city's legal staff when she was hired, according to Cooper.

Amos, a recent law school graduate, had previously interviewed for a job with the office, and checked in after that at least four times about getting a job, he said. When the new job was created, she was a "logical choice," Cooper said.

Amos had interned in the Davidson County Sheriff's Office, served as a law clerk in Davidson County Circuit Court and served as a summer associate for the firm Tune, Entrekin & White after graduating from law school in 2015.

The position was not included in the existing city budget that year. It was the first newly created job in the Metro legal department since at least 2014, according to Cooper.

Cooper expressed the need for the position to the mayor and then the Department of Finance. The department "identified the need for a new position based on several factors, including the attorney time needed in traffic court, the increase in the number of environmental court cases and the need to cover clients when attorneys are absent for an extended period of time, such as maternity leave," he said.

Amos' starting salary in 2016 was $54,000, the base salary for a starting attorney.

On Jan. 1 of this year, Amos was promoted to a Level II attorney and given a raise to $74,000, the base salary for an attorney at that level. She was one of four members of the legal department to receive a promotion. A promotion from a Level I attorney to a Level II attorney is common after two years on the job, according to Cooper, who approved the raise.

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Cooper said that Amos was recommended by others in city government and has performed ably on the job.

"Macy had interned with both Mayor Purcell and Mayor Dean, and had essentially been around Metro government her entire life," Cooper said. "In addition, I have never interviewed anyone who wanted to be an attorney with Metro legal more than Macy. In fact she made it clear ... that this was her 'dream job.' When this particular position became available, Macy was the logical choice."

Amos did not respond to a request for comment.

Doug Sloan, who recently was hired as chief legal officer for the Metro Nashville Airport Authority, led the Metro Planning department when Amos was assigned to work there.

Sloan called Amos “a great lawyer, not a good lawyer.”

He said that the department was short-staffed for legal work for a short time, and Amos gladly stepped up to take on the extra workload.

Briffault said that recommending the hiring of people based on "ordinary politics" is not typically improper. Amos' father worked as a police officer for more than 30 years and his role may have opened the door to city internships and other opportunities. That would not rise to the level of an ethical violation, Briffault said.

But the mayor's relationship with Forrest does raise ethical questions, he said.

"That's why these ethics issues are so hard," he said. "We will never know if she was hired on her own merits or not. That's why we have ethics. There need not have been anything improper here at all, but now there's a cloud."

Nate Rau contributed. Reach Anita Wadhwani at awadhwani@tennessean.com; 615-259-8092 or on Twitter @AnitaWadhwani.