A former IT worker in a North Carolina suburb claims he was fired in retaliation for reporting after-hours surveillance footage of the mayor allegedly pantsless with a date inside town hall, according to lawsuit.
Jeffrey Noble claimed he was wrongfully axed from his tech job with the Town of Mooresville, about 27 miles north of Charlotte, months after discovering a scandalous video of Mayor Chris Carney wandering the municipal building without pants in October 2024, according to the civil suit obtained by WBTV.
The complaint, filed Monday in the Western District of North Carolina, alleged the footage captured the bare-bottomed mayor holed up inside town hall after midnight for nearly five hours with a woman.
“You can see the mayor at least a couple of different occasions without wearing pants, which is a very big issue,” Noble told the outlet, noting the late-night rendezvous is “unethical.”
“I was absolutely shocked. Absolutely shocked.”
The ex-town employee alleged he stumbled upon the shocking footage after finding data showing the mayor swiped his ID to enter the government building outside normal business hours.
Noble reported the footage to his supervisor – but was then placed on administrative leave after town officials restricted access to the video and accused him of leaking it to the press, the suit claims.
“He found a very serious ethical violation, did exactly what he was mandated to do, and now he’s being punished for it,” his lawyer, Chris Purkey, told the outlet.
Noble was allegedly canned last July following a faulty internal probe that recommended his firing, he claimed in the lawsuit.
The town, Carney, Town Manager Tracey Jerome and Chief Financial Officer Christopher Quinn are all named in the lawsuit and accused of working together to conceal the security tape and protect the mayor.
“The Town denies any allegations of wrongdoing and will respond to the claims through the appropriate legal process,” a Mooresville spokesperson told The Post in a statement.
“Because this matter involves pending litigation, we do not plan to comment further at this time.”
Carney, who was reelected in 2024, took an extended, unannounced leave of absence soon after the footage was reported.
In December 2024, he told the outlet: “There’s no video of me in my office or anything. I mean it’s all about me in the hallways. I can’t imagine it would be anything pressing. Just me going to the bathroom.”
Carney did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
