Allegations have surfaced that St. Louis Sheriff James Murphy hired a retired black lieutenant as a pay-off for testimony given on his behalf during a racial discrimmination trial. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports three of the four black deputies who filed the federal lawsuit accuse Murphy of giving Myrtle Ballentine-Shelton as a pay-off. Ballentine-Shelton testified for Murphy during his two-day federal trail. Murphy insists he hired her to independently investigate his department to decide whether allegations being investigated by the newspaper were true.
