DETROIT, MI --- A federal jury is deliberating on whether former City Administrator Natasha Henderson was wrongfully fired from her job by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing inside City Hall.

An eight-member jury in U.S. District Court heard closing arguments in the civil lawsuit brought by Henderson on Tuesday, May 14, and began deliberations just before noon.

Henderson claims she was fired in February 2016 for telling other city officials that Weaver seemingly tried to divert water crisis donations to her own nonprofit -- Caring for Flint.

Weaver testified last week that she terminated Henderson after having been blindsided by a Feb. 9, 2016 MLive story that showed several Flint officials, including Henderson, received an email from a Genesee County health official 11 months prior, warning them of a possible link between outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease and city water.

The five-man, two-woman jury must decide if Henderson has shown by a preponderance of evidence that she was fired for a protected activity and that the mayor knew the former city administrator, appointed by a former emergency manager, was involved in that protected activity.

Maurice Jenkins, an attorney for the city, told the jury Tuesday that Henderson’s firing happened for failing to keep the mayor in the loop about the possible connection between spikes in Legionnaires’ cases and the city’s water supply, which was contaminated with lead and bacteria while the Flint River was used as the city’s water source.

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal ...,” Jenkins said, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. “The mayor in good faith believed (Henderson) has a moral responsibility” to tell her what she knew and to protect the public rather than to defend officials from the state of Michigan, who claimed Flint water was safe.

While he addressed the jury, Jenkins showed slides to the jury, one showing the scales of justice with an elephant representing the city’s case and nothing on Henderson’s side of the scale.

Attorneys for Henderson have presented emails between Henderson and Weaver, indicating the mayor was aware of the Legionnaires’ spikes prior to the Feb. 9 MLive story.

Henderson attorney Katherine Smith Kennedy told jurors Tuesday that city attorneys misrepresented parts of the circumstances surrounding her client’s firing.

“She wasn’t silent ... She trusted (the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality). They were the one’s who were the experts,” Smith Kennedy said.

Smith Kennedy continued to maintain that Henderson’s knowledge of the mayor’s nonprofit, created as a 527 organization -- usually a form of campaign fund created for politicians -- was her undoing after she told other city officials about it.

Under federal law, a 527 account isn’t required to register or report to the state and can accept direct corporate contributions. Politicians are only obliged to report donors and expenditures if contributions exceed $25,000 in a year.

Weaver has maintained that she wanted to use the fund to travel in order to solicit funds for the city, which was attempting to emerge from state financial oversight in the aftermath of the water crisis.

“The 527 fund was kept secret ...It was a political fund,” Smith Kennedy said.

She characterized the MLive story that Weaver cited as the reason for firing Henderson as “one of hundreds of articles per week that were coming at these administrators.”

“Natasha Henderson can’t guess which of these articles were going to upset the mayor," Smith Kennedy added.

Jenkins said Henderson allowed Weaver to be blindsided while traveling to Washington to request help for Flint by not telling her what she knew.

“That’s called (not) keeping the mayor in the loop,” he said.

Jenkins said the 527 fund was needed because Flint didn’t have the money to pay for Weaver’s trips, which were necessary to seek financial help for the city.