Memphis police have just released the closed case file regarding their sexual allegation investigation into former city director Robert Lipscomb.
Lipscomb was the director of Housing and Community Development and the Housing Authority until he was fired after a man came forward making claims of sexual misconduct.
Senior investigator Jeni Diprizio was the first to break the story that the district attorney would not move forward with charges against Lipscomb. She was the first reporter to get her hands on the copy of the file released today.
The file is thick and details the claims made against Lipscomb by six men going all the way back to 1986. Five of the men came forward after the story broke last year.
The file says the district attorney declined prosecuting any of the cases for several reasons.
In each of the cases, the statute of limitations had lapsed and prosecutors couldn’t in good faith request indictments from the grand jury on the facts that stand.
In the case of the first person who came forward in August of 2015, the one who called then Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office making the claim.
The prosecutor wrote she had strong reservations about the complainant’s ability to testify and his credibility as a witness. He had even written Lipscomb an apology letter several years ago for trying to blackmail him.
The Local I-Team did learn the man had called Lipscomb’s office demanding money two weeks before he called the mayor’s office making the sexual misconduct claims.
He claimed he began having a sexual relationship with Lipscomb when he was 16 and demanded money over the years. Lipscomb says the Washington state man had been blackmailing him.
The other victims’ stories range from claiming the former city director fondled a child during a sleepover in 1988 to claims Lipscomb befriended young men who lived in the inner city and then later began sexual relationships with them giving them money over the years.
The prosecutor wrote regarding one of the victims, “it’s a textbook example of a predator grooming a child that eventually evolves into the molestation of the child. The betrayal of trust in this situation is staggering.”
Lipscomb has maintained his innocence from the beginning saying nothing inappropriate has been done. Search warrants failed to turn up anything illegal on his phone or computer.
According to the documents, last November, the FBI requested a copy of the police file into Lipscomb.
Once again, Lipscomb has said from the beginning he did nothing wrong. He also turned over audio recordings from the original complainant where the man was threatening violence and legal action against the former city director if Lipscomb didn’t give him money.
