RALEIGH -- A high-ranking law enforcement officer in the state Division of Motor Vehicles says his superiors planted a hidden tracking device in his state-issued car in hopes of finding something to use against him in a long-running personnel dispute.
Michael Weaks, a supervisor in the License and Theft Bureau, made the accusation in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Wake County Superior Court. The suit contends DMV Commissioner Mike Robertson and at least two other top officials in the division were part of a conspiracy to discredit him.
The complaint alleges installing the global positioning system device was a violation of the state's constitutional protection against warrantless searches. It comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that police violated the U.S. Constitution when they hid a GPS device on a suspect's car without a warrant authorizing it and tracked the car for 28 days.
"What stands out here is the breach of trust," said Michael C. Byrne of Raleigh, who is Weaks' attorney. "For people who risk their lives on a regular basis to protect us, to have their own senior management hiding a tracking device in their vehicle for no legitimate reason is a pretty sad occurrence."
A spokeswoman for the DMV said the division would have no comment on the lawsuit.
Weaks says the bug was hidden in the car's trunk during an elaborate ruse.
According to his lawsuit, Weaks was leaving the DMV headquarters in Raleigh last April when he noticed one of the tires in his state car was flat. He and others began changing the tire and then License and Theft Bureau Director Jack D. Coltrane came along and told Weaks not to bother because he would get dirty.
When Weaks said he was already doing it, Coltrane invited him upstairs where some food was available, adding that other DMV workers would change the tire for him, the lawsuit says. Weaks agreed and spent about an hour away from the car, he says.
That's when Weaks believes the GPS was planted in the trunk, where it stayed for nine months until he discovered it in January. Weaks was permitted to drive the car to his home in Forsyth County.
Weaks' lawsuit contends that he is not suspected of any criminal activity and he hasn't done anything that would prompt a law enforcement agency to investigate him. He says the GPS was planted "to secretly obtain information about the plaintiff's movements and whereabouts in order to attack plaintiff's job performance or conduct."
A longtime employee with the division, Weaks has had run-ins with management in recent years, the lawsuit says. He filed a discrimination lawsuit in federal court, which was resolved in the state's favor. Weaks also says he refused to approve a career employee's dismissal, and that further irritated some in management.
Along with Robertson and Coltrane, the lawsuit alleges DMV Assistant Commissioner Ronald Kaylor was also involved in the decision to track Weaks' movements.
