The Memphis Housing Authority [MHA] board voted to retain its embattled director Robert Lipscomb on the staff but he’s still suspended with pay.
Lipscomb is the target of now numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. Those allegations came forward last month when one accuser contacted Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office at Memphis City Hall. That accuser said he was a homeless teenager in Memphis when Lipscomb picked him up and forced the teen to perform oral sex on him.
At least nine more accusers contacted Memphis Mayor A C Wharton’s office after that with similar stories, according to the city’s chief administrative officer Jack Sammons. The Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office are now investigating the claims.
No formal charges have been filed against Lipscomb. Though, he did resign from his post as the city’s director of Housing and Community Development.
Lipscomb’s attorney handed out a letter to MHA board members from Lipscomb’s first accuser. That letter is from 2011, the attorneys said, and is an apology, they said.
The letter’s content is below:.
Dear Mr. Lipscomb,
I want to start by apologizing for the trouble I caused you. Even though the world gave my pain, I shouldn’t have brought it to you. Now I regret I lost our friendship.
I coulnd’t handle the pain. My mom took sick in March of ’07, twenty-three days after her birthday and passed May 2 (2007 at 11:40 a.m.). My aunt and uncles said when the money gone I got to go.
I was already homeless, but that broke my soul and I needed help to be honest.
You were in a position to help and you did but a part of me felt as if you could have did more given our past. I thought you would.
I want have your friendship back at least.
Accept my apology, and forgive me. I was young and stupid. But, now I realize just cuz you have no where to go or food to eat you shouldn’t take advantage of great people to get ahead.
It’s like every-where I turned, I would get help only heart ache and pain, and I took my anger I had against the world and turn it to you. And at the time I didn’t have the one thing I needed a relationship with God. I found him after my move to Michigan, I’ve never felt so free.
But since I’ve been back I’m facing the same problems. Please help me or at least know you forigve me.
My family got me out the way cause the state would give them money for me cause I was 18 at the time of my mom’s death and me was the oldest of the three. I hurt because they took my sister and brother and turned them agaisnt me and when we got back together I had to feed the three of us and you were the only window of light in that dark world.
But I begging you for you to grace me with your blessing. I really need you. I have a three year old child I have full custody of and no help or steady job.
I hope you find it in your heart to help me and point me in the right direction. I’ve been seeking God’s help since my suicide attempt weeks before my mom passed. Me being shot and robbed didn’t help me much but I still had no right to do what I did. I’m sorry.
Bobby Harris
