Robert Lipscomb relieved of duty
Sex with minor alleged
Memphis Housing and Community Development Director Robert Lipscomb was relieved of duty Sunday evening because of a criminal complaint by a Seattle resident, a former Memphian who alleged an improper sexual relationship several years ago when he was a minor, city chief administrative officer Jack Sammons said.
The young man in his mid-20s came forward with the allegations involving a relationship when he was 16, prompting an MPD investigation headed by Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong himself, Sammons said.
Armstrong and a pair of investigators returned from Seattle Sunday night and, after a meeting with Mayor A C Wharton and attorneys, Lipscomb was relieved of duty pending the results of an investigation.
“These allegations are extremely disturbing,” Wharton said in a statement issued by his office late Sunday night. “To ensure that we leave no stone unturned, in addition to referring this matter to the District Attorney General’s Office, we will also seek legal counsel as to if any other state or federal agencies should be involved in this investigation.”
A call to Lipscomb’s cell phone late Sunday night was not answered.
Lipscomb, a Booker T. Washington High and LeMoyne-Owen College graduate, took the helm of the city’s Housing and Community Development Division in 1992. He was away from city government for a brief time in the late 1990s, but his work led to major overhauls of the city’s public housing projects, and his involvement has been critical to many of the city’s major redevelopment works of the past two decades.
Lipscomb has been the city’s point man in the controversial proposed redevelopment of the old Mid-South Fairgrounds, in the works for about a decade now.