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ST. LOUIS — A public hearing that could lead to firing of the city’s personnel director has wrapped up with her lawyer insisting there was no direct evidence she had a subordinate drive her in a city car to confront her husband and the city’s lawyer casting doubt on her truthfulness.

Personnel Director Sonya Jenkins-Gray, hired by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones in 2022, has fought for the last six months the mayor’s attempt to oust her from her job, one with broad sway over hiring and promotions across the city’s 4,500-person workforce.

Jenkins-Gray argues she is being targeted for political reasons — her opposition to a charter change giving the mayor’s office more power over the department, her resistance to mayoral meddling in promotions and the political activities of her husband, the Rev. Darryl Gray.

The mayor’s office, though, said it had little choice but to pursue her firing after it learned Jenkins-Gray put her subordinate, Anthony Byrd, in the middle of an awkward personal situation when she had him drive her in a city vehicle to Jefferson City on a workday in order to catch her husband with his ex-wife.

Jenkins-Gray has maintained that she went to Jefferson City to retrieve “personal� documents from her car, though she has declined to say what those documents were.

In his closing argument on Tuesday, Reggie Harris, a Stinson attorney hired by the city to prosecute the case against Jenkins-Gray, reminded the Civil Service Commission that rather than go to her car first, they went to a hotel where Gray was. There, Jenkins-Gray called the hotel and asked to speak to her husband’s ex-wife, Byrd said in his deposition. Byrd also said he did not see the director retrieve any papers from her car in Jefferson City.

“Nobody testified that the director, in fact, went to her car in Jefferson City and retrieved papers, nobody except the director, the one on trial, the one with the motive to make up an explanation like that,� Harris told the Civil Service Commission. “Only the director testified about retrieving personal papers. To this day, no one knows what these alleged personal papers are. You know why? Because they don’t exist. That was a made-up story.�

And, Harris said, Byrd was promoted soon after the trip despite a deputy director in the department advising against the promotion a couple weeks prior.

“What was the date that she did this? It was July 3, the same day of the trip to Jefferson City,� Harris said in his closing argument. “Well, they say they were doing some work that day. The only evidence of work that was done was that email that she sent directing that (Byrd) be reclassified.�

Jenkins-Gray’s team has maintained the promotion was in the works before the trip.

Ron Norwood, a Lewis Rice attorney who represents Jenkins-Gray, said he’s spent his career representing “multinational corporations, big tobacco companies, big insurance companies, small businesses, large businesses,� but that Jenkins-Gray stood out because of her continued dedication to her job even as she was fighting the mayor’s efforts to fire her. Norwood urged the commission to see the effort as a “power-grab� by the Jones administration.

“This is about the pettiness, the vindictiveness, the callousness of our mayor,� Norwood said in closing. “Don’t let this great civil service system be swallowed up by the politically infected shark tank known as the Mayor Tishaura Jones administration.�

Norwood also lashed out at the media coverage of the hearing, saying the mayor’s office only had “inferred� Jenkins-Gray went to Jefferson City to catch her husband cheating.

“Report the fact that they don’t have one witness to back that up,� Norwood said. “They call it burying the lede, where they ignore all of the evidence about political interference and rule violations and false documents, sweep that under the rug.�

The day before, Gray testified that he never “committed infidelity� and that he was told by several “media people,� who he declined to name, that the rumor his wife was trying to catch him cheating in Jefferson City came from the mayor’s office. Gray has criticized the Jones administration from his position as chair of the jail oversight board. He also backed Wesley Bell over U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Jones ally, in the August Democratic primary. (Bell won and is now serving in Congress.)

Gray said he went to meet his ex-wife, who lives in Kansas City, to sign papers relating to their child. If people believed he, as a clergyman, had been unfaithful to his wife, “it could be devastating to my career.�

“There’s no evidence it ever happened and it’s unfortunate they continue to say it,� Gray testified.

He also testified that he saw his wife later that night on July 3 at home and apologized to her for not telling her about why he was seeing his ex-wife in Jefferson City.

“She was obviously upset,� Gray said. “I should have told her.�

That seemed to contradict testimony from Byrd that he had taken Jenkins-Gray to gather belongings from her home and then finally to stay at a friend’s house around midnight that evening. Jenkins-Gray also testified early on in the hearing that Byrd drove her to a friend’s house later that night after first taking her to Hollywood casino in Maryland Heights to retrieve something from the car her husband had borrowed to drive to Jefferson City.

Biannca Lambert, who reported the incident to the mayor’s office in August after Byrd told her about it, said in a statement to the mayor’s office that Byrd “stated confidently that Reverend Gray was cheating.� Lambert also said Byrd told her that Jenkins-Gray had been fired twice before for “abusing power over her secretarial staff to have them perform non-work-related duties� and that there had been two prior incidents where she had tried to locate Rev. Gray to verify whether he was cheating.

Lambert testified she confronted Jenkins-Gray with that information.

“I had pointed out that Anthony claimed that she had done this before, twice before, and that she had been fired twice before, and she said and immediately followed up with, ‘yes, that happened, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this,’� Lambert said during her testimony last month.

Jenkins-Gray testified early in the hearing that she had left her previous job because of differences with leadership.

Lambert also said Jenkins-Gray didn’t deny her account of what Byrd had told her about the trip when she confronted her about it in August. Jenkins-Gray testified Tuesday she in “no way admitted any of the allegations� about her Jefferson City trip were true.

Harris, the attorney for the city, also played a recording of Jenkins-Gray “secretly� recording Byrd, shortly after Lambert had confronted the director about the story. In it, Jenkins-Gray says she “never should have allowed my personal life to be known in this building.�

In another clip, she appears to be telling Byrd to create a document containing information he gleaned from an “illegal� recording he made of another employee so she can “protect� him and refer to the document if there were any questions about how she obtained the information.

“You even lied to people to protect him,� Harris said after stopping the recording.

“I don’t want you to mischaracterize why I said that I told a little white lie,� Jenkins-Gray responded.

“It just sounds to me like, you’re telling him, ‘you illegally recorded someone, that was illegal, but I’m gonna protect you, I even lied about it,’� Harris summarized.

“I can see why you would surmise that,� Jenkins Gray admitted.

Each side has two weeks to submit their closing briefs. The commission’s recommendation on whether Jenkins-Gray should be fired is due to the mayor, who may accept or reject it, March 4 — Election Day.