ST. LOUIS — A lawyer for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones accused city Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray of violating the city’s vehicle policy by using a city car to travel to Jefferson City in order to try and catch her husband, the Rev. Darryl Gray, cheating on her.

But Jenkins-Gray and her husband, a prominent local clergyman, both denied that was the reason she and a subordinate used a car to travel to the Missouri capital on July 3.

“Let me be very clear,” Jenkins-Gray said during her testimony at a Civil Service Commission hearing Wednesday. “The reason I went to Jefferson City had nothing to do with trying to catch my husband cheating.”

Activist Rev. Darryl Gray watches his wife, Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray, leave to continue her work day after the second day of her disciplinary hearing over the use of her company car on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the Carnahan Courthouse. Jenkins-Gray feels her husband's political activities spurred the Mayor Tishaura O' Jones push to fire her.

The city’s questions about the reason for Jenkins-Gray’s July 3 trip to Jefferson City came a week after the Civil Service Commission opened an unprecedented public hearing that could lead to the first mayoral firing of a city personnel director since the creation of the city’s civil service system. Unlike other city department heads, the mayor doesn’t choose the city’s personnel director unless the position is vacant. The mayor can only fire a personnel director after a public hearing to consider formal charges against the director, until now a never-before-used provision of the city’s charter.

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After the prior personnel director retired, Jones was given an opportunity many mayors never get and hired Jenkins-Gray for the post in 2022. But the relationship has since soured.

Jenkins-Gray and her attorneys argue Jones is going after her for political reasons, pointing to Darryl Gray’s criticism of the administration via his position on the city’s jail oversight board and also his support last year for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell’s congressional campaign. Bell defeated U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a close ally of the mayor, in the Democratic primary.

But city lawyers said Jenkins-Gray should be fired because she violated the vehicle policy and brought a subordinate into an “uncomfortable” personal situation, only reporting the vehicle violation after being confronted by another one of her employees.

Attorney Reggie Harris objects to the relevance of a question posed by City of St. Louis Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray's attorney, Ron Norwood, during cross examination on the second day of Jenkins-Gray's disciplinary hearing over the use of her company car on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the Carnahan Courthouse.

Reggie Harris, an attorney with the Stinson law firm hired by the city to prosecute the case against Jenkins-Gray, said the city intended to show Jenkins-Gray had directed a subordinate to borrow a city car and drive her to Jefferson City in order to “determine whether or not her husband was having an affair.”

Last week, on the first day of the hearing, Jenkins-Gray testified that she went to Jefferson City for personal reasons and to retrieve “personal” documents. She said she thought the vehicle use was authorized but later admitted to violating the city’s vehicle policy and reimbursed the city $170 for mileage in the following weeks.

The two-member Civil Service Commission and the hearing officer, Judge Edward Sweeney, last week blocked Harris from asking more questions about the reasons for the personal trip, reasoning that Jenkins-Gray had already admitted to violating the city’s vehicle policy.

City of St. Louis Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray answers a question under cross examination by her lawyer, Ron Norwood, during a disciplinary hearing over her use of a city-owned car, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the Carnahan Courthouse.

But on Wednesday, Harris again began asking about Jenkins-Gray’s reasons for the trip, and brought up her suspicions about her husband. Jenkins-Gray’s attorney, Ron Norwood of law firm Lewis Rice, objected to the questions.

“Assuming that was the purpose, how does that make a difference?” Norwood said. “It’s clearly designed to try and embarrass her.”

But Harris insisted the questions were relevant, suggesting Jenkins-Gray could be lying about why she traveled to the capital city and that the mayor’s office “needs to know the real story.”

Sweeney, the hearing officer, asked the public to leave the room so the commission could consider whether to allow questions about the nature of Jenkins-Gray’s Jefferson City trip.

The Missouri’s Sunshine Law requires public bodies to include advance notice of any potential closed meetings prior to the body going into private session and a rollcall vote of the commission before closing a meeting to the public. The notice for the Civil Service Commission meeting on Wednesday contained no reference to a potential closed session of the commission, nor was there a formal vote to close the meeting.

After about 20 minutes, the commission allowed the public to reenter and let Harris ask Jenkins-Gray about the reasons for her trip.

The Rev. Gray at one point left the hearing room visibly upset. He told the Post-Dispatch he was in Jefferson City for “personal and legal reasons” but declined to elaborate. Either way, he said, it doesn’t matter, and he said the mayor is trying to “tarnish his influence.”

“I think that there’s no reason in the world that any rumors or gossip or innuendos about our personal life should have any bearing on whether or not she’s able to do her job, or whether or not she should be terminated for repaying a $170 reimbursement for a car,” he said.

Jared Boyd, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones' Chief of Staff, listens to testimony during the second day of Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray disciplinary hearing over the use of her company car on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the Carnahan Courthouse.

Civil Service Commission member Vincent Flewellen and Chair Steven Barney, flank retired judge Edward Sweeney during the second day of Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray disciplinary hearing over the use of her company car on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, at the Carnahan Courthouse.

View life in (snowy) St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.

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