Credit Union Employee Loses Job After Police Suspect Him In Murder
A Maryland man who was a suspect in a Washington, D.C., murder case is pondering his legal options after he was fired from his job because of the homicide investigation.
Doug King of Accokeek says that he was let go from his job as a loan processor earlier this month after a detective investigating the murder called his employer to say that King was a suspect in the case, Washington TV station WTTG reports.
King's attorney, Bruce Johnson, says it wasn't necessary for the department to call his employer, the National Association of Postmasters of the U.S. Credit Union, because King's job wasn't related to the murder.
"The incident didn't occur near his job," Johnson says. "There was no reason to call his job other than to harm Mr. King."
King was at the Heritage India Club in Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood last November when a fight broke out, leaving 34-year-old Jhonte Coleman dead.
King was there to celebrate a birthday, he says, and dropped his driver's license while running to safety. It was the lost license, found near the victim's body, that led D.C. police to suspect King of the murder.
King denies knowing Coleman or anyone else involved in the incident or why the fight broke out.
King says that he cooperated with the investigation because he had nothing to hide and never considered that it might lead to him losing his job.
"I'm furious," WTTG reports King as saying. "It's hard to get a job right now, and for me to lose it over something I had nothing to do with -- that makes it worse."
The U.S. Attorney's office eventually issued a statement to King's employer clearing him as a suspect, the TV station reports.
But King still seeks more than that, he says, because the detective had no business calling his employer.
"No one's called to apologize to Mr. King," Johnson says. "And no one's taken any steps to repair his life."
Attempts to reach the NAPUS credit union for comment about King's dismissal weren't successful.
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David Schepp
David Schepp has spent more than a dozen years covering business news for the electronic and print media, including Dow Jones Newswires, BBC News, Gannett Co., and most recently at AOL's DailyFinance. Nearly 10 years ago, he started writing a weekly People@Work column, looking in depth at issues facing workers in today's workplace. Follow David on Twitter. Email David at david.schepp@huffingtonpost.com. Add David to your Google+ circles.
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