When the Rams received approval to relocate from St. Louis, it initially appeared as if the reactionary legal processes would only take place on the St. Louis side (although thanks to that case, we at least got another unneeded example of how ridiculous Stan Kroenke is willing to be in his pathetic attempt to claim legal status residing in Wyoming...).
No, today's episode of Rams-related legal drama is coming from the Los Angeles side of things with a whistleblower filing suit against the Mayor of Inglewood and others alleging she was fired for drawing attention to a "pattern of financial and accounting irregularities" from city officials.
In the "whistle-blower" lawsuit filed May 18 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Barbara Ohno alleges she was fired because she disclosed to federal and state authorities that the city illegally pooled its general fund with grant monies.
"I was told to stand down, look the other way and be a team player because when Inglewood got the Rams, there would be so much money coming in, no one would care how the city ran its finances," Ohno said in a statement released by her attorney, Bruce Ishimatsu. "I refused to comply with what I was told was the ‘plantation mentality’ in Inglewood and got fired for it."
Butts called the lawsuit "totally baseless and without any merit." He said Ohno was a probationary employee released before completing her probationary period.
The lawsuit states she was dismissed in June 2015. Butts said he could not discuss why Ohno was let go because it was a personnel matter.
What does this ultimately mean? Not much.
Embellishing some falsehoods to present a rosier picture of Inglewood than reality isn't much different than embellishing some falsehoods to make St. Louis look worse than reality.
Moving the Rams to Los Angeles threw a boulder in an ocean. A small ripple isn't ultimately going to upset Neptune. Or his bosses in Stan Kroenke and Roger Goodell.