By Adam Pagnucco.
The Maryland-National Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has filed a civil lawsuit against Carolyn Chen, a former county council staffer who left the council last fall. Moderately MoCo first reported the story yesterday. I followed up by obtaining the complaint from Park and Planning.
This issue first surfaced last September, when a memo from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that a council staffer “inappropriately charged $11,490 worth of reservations of county athletic fields” to a county council account. The OIG wrote that the employee intentionally misled parks staff to believe they were requesting reservations on behalf of the council, never paid the bills and “intentionally made false statements to OIG investigators in an effort to conceal their misconduct.” The staffer in question was not named at the time and left council employment soon afterwards.
Moderately Moco found a case header of Park and Planning’s suit against the former employee, who was identified as Carolyn Chen. She worked for central staff and was not employed by the office of any individual council member. Park and Planning forwarded their civil complaint, which contains the following allegations against Chen.
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During a period spanning from June 2022 to July 2023, Defendant requested reservations and/or permits for, and obtained, no less than thirty-three (33) reservations and/or permits to utilize two recreational fields owned and operated by Defendant’s Montgomery County Parks Department (hereinafter “Department”): Laytonia Recreational Park, located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park, located in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Collectively, Plaintiff charged Defendant nineteen-thousand one-hundred ninety dollars and no cents ($19,190.00) for said reservations and/or permits which were obtained by Defendant for purposes of utilizing Plaintiffs recreational fields.
In transacting with Plaintiff, for each and every reservation and/or permit obtained, Defendant falsely, negligently, and intentionally misrepresented to Plaintiff’s department staff that she was acting in her capacity as a Montgomery County Council employee on behalf of that body. Further, Defendant falsely, negligently, and intentionally misrepresented to Defendant’s department staff that payment(s) for each and every reservation and/or permit obtained would be forthcoming from the Montgomery County Council.
No payments having ever been received from Defendant for each and every reservation and/or permit obtained, Plaintiff ultimately was made aware of Defendant’s false, negligent, and intentional misrepresentations based upon investigation(s) conducted by Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Council, and Plaintiff’s department staff.
The results of said investigation(s) revealed that, for each and every reservation and/or permit obtained, Defendant was not in fact acting in her capacity as an employee of the Montgomery County Council, but instead that she was acting in her own self-interest and securing the aforementioned reservations and/or permits for third parties unaffiliated with either Plaintiff or the Montgomery County Council. As to each and every reservation and/or permit obtained, Defendant was acting outside of her scope as an employee of the Montgomery County Council and at no time did the Montgomery County Council authorize Defendant to obtain said reservations and/or permits on its behalf.
Indeed, Defendant did not merely obtain the permits and reserve the recreational fields, but the fields were held and used during the times of the reservations.
As a result of Defendant’s acts and/or omissions, Plaintiff is owed nineteen thousand one-hundred ninety dollars and no cents ($19,190.00). To date, Plaintiff’s attempts to collect said sum from Defendant have been unsuccessful.
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Park and Planning is now suing Chen for one count of breach of contract, one count of contract-unjust enrichment, one count of tort-intentional misrepresentation, one count of tort-negligent misrepresentation and one count of tort-constructive fraud. The agency is seeking $19,190 plus costs. The civil suit was filed in District Court for Montgomery County, Silver Spring on March 8. Its case number is D-06-CV-24-011000. Chen has been served a summons and has not answered the complaint at this writing.
I asked the Parks Department for comment and was told by its media relations manager, “We will not comment on the details of ongoing litigation.” I also asked the State’s Attorney’s Office whether they plan to bring criminal charges and was told, “We don’t comment on the existence or nonexistence of an investigation.”
A copy of Park and Planning’s civil complaint can be downloaded below.