Charges Dropped Against "UNCG 3"; Focus Turns To University's Next Steps

The case against three former UNC Greensboro employees took a major turn Thursday. A Guilford County judge dropped all 22 felony charges. The issue now turns to whether the university acted properly in terminating them.

Photographers Chris English and David Wilson have to pay back a week's worth of pay and perform 40 hours of community service. After that, the charges will be dropped and they'll have no criminal record. They were accused of using university time and materials to support their private photography business. Their attorney, Kenneth Free Jr., says the case should have never reached the criminal courts.

“They made a mistake in filling out their sheet, which they've never denied. But there was nothing criminal or anything about it. It just should have been administratively handled," says Free.

Free says the photographers loved working at UNCG and will now fight to get their jobs back.

The charges against Lyda Carpen, their supervisor, were dropped outright. She has also appealed her firing. Seth Cohen, the attorney handling her appeal, says she was unjustly fired and UNCG needs to resolve the grievance she has filed.

“The district attorney did the right thing. Now we're asking UNCG to do the right thing. If someone from UNCG would call me, we could have this resolved in a matter of hours," says Cohen.

The university fired all three workers Sept. 24 after accusing them of claiming they were working while taking part in a freelance photography business.

The firings and subsequent arrests sparked a backlash by the university community. For more than a month now there have been petitions, social media outrage and on Tuesday, a silent vigil attended by dozens of supporters. Spoma Jovanovic, chairwoman of UNCG's faculty senate, says the end of the criminal case could be a first step in the healing process.

“Because now we can at least recognize that there should never have been these charges filed in the first place. Now, going forward, we need to ask why that happened – and we still don't know why – and what processes we have in place to deal with questions we may have,” says Jovanovic.

UNCG released a statement from Chancellor Linda Brady:

It has been difficult for all of us in the UNCG community to see three former employees charged with crimes, so I am pleased to tell you that the legal issues stemming from their actions were resolved today.

When we discovered that we had employees operating a for-profit business out of the university, on university time, and with university equipment, we were obligated to do two things. 

First, we had to take appropriate disciplinary action because we are stewards of taxpayer dollars and the public's trust. The information showed that what the employees were doing was clearly inappropriate. We could not simply look the other way. 

Second, we were legally obligated to report what we found to law enforcement authorities. We weren't seeking criminal penalties because that's not our role. It was the District Attorney's responsibility to determine whether criminal charges were warranted and then to resolve those charges as he deemed appropriate. We accept and respect his decisions.

I stand by the decisions that we made. 

All three employees will have the opportunity to go through the personnel grievance process, and I am confident that it will be fair and objective. I want to say again that I know what a difficult time this has been for our campus community. As challenging as it is at times, we must always do the right thing. Now we must focus together on rebuilding our community. Nothing is more important for the future of this university.