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If your job is to run a department charged with protecting animal welfare, there are a few choice topics best left alone in conversations with your employees. Tijuana donkey shows are definitely on that list.
Pinellas County’s Animal Services director, Phillip Morgan, learned that lesson the hard way. He’s resigned after investigators found he’d chatted in the office about the performances featuring women having sex with the beasts.
Investigators found that Morgan, who is 51, had discussed donkey shows with employees, cupped his hands over his chest suggestively while talking about a coworker’s breasts and mockingly said during a euthanasia, “You’re just going to kill an animal.”
Each of those offenses, as you might expect, violate a county ordinance against offensive conduct in the workplace.
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Morgan resigned last week from the $107,000 per year job, citing “personal reasons.”
Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, he denied the charges and claims he was instead the victim of employees who felt “threatened” by his changes in the department.
“I absolutely, unequivocally deny most of the allegations,” he tells the paper. “Some of the allegations were taken out of context.”
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