Did Myrtle Beach area administrator lie about his past to get the job? What we found

Surfside Beach’s town administrator appears to have lied on his job application about why he left his previous local government jobs.

Gerry Vincent was hired to town’s top job, which currently pays $141,750, on May 15, 2023, according to his personnel file.

He came to Surfside Beach with more than three decades of work in local government offices, including town manager positions in two different North Carolina communities, his personnel record shows.

Vincent left those positions to be closer to family and help care for aging parents, he wrote on his application, but court records and various news reports recently gathered by The Sun News suggest he left under controversial circumstances.

Vincent told The Sun News Monday that he did make Surfside Beach council aware prior to his hiring of an arrest, which has since been expunged from his record, that preceded his first resignation. Recent claims of inappropriate behavior leading to his second resignation are false, Vincent said, and thus not relevant to include on his job application.

Abrupt resignation, sexually explicit texts alleged

Vincent abruptly resigned Dec. 6, 2022 as manager of the Town of Angier, N.C., following a closed session at the town’s board of commissioners meeting, according to town meeting minutes. He held that position, his most recent before applying to Surfside Beach, about four years, his application shows.

Town officials were quiet on the reasons for his sudden departure, but The Daily Record newspaper reported that a former commissioner later criticized town leaders for pushing him out.

“When you tell a man he will be fired if he doesn’t resign, that’s blackmail,” the former commissioner said, according to the reports.

A lawsuit recently filed in Harnett County, N.C. alleges Vincent was sending inappropriate, sexually explicit text messages to subordinates.

The suit, filed by Angier’s former Police Chief Arthur Yarbrough against the town, claims that the town had a culture “marked by frequent and pervasive bawdy and off-color humor, among and between all employees” under Vincent’s watch.

The former chief was terminated Aug. 2, 2021 without proper due process, particularly considering Vincent and other town leaders were complicit and directly or indirectly involved in creating that workplace culture, the suit states.

Vincent told The Sun News Monday that Yarbrough was fired at the recommendation of Angier’s town attorney after a formal complaint filed by a female employee was investigated.

He said that there’s “no merit” to allegations he sent inappropriate text messages. He alleged the investigation into Angier’s former police chief actually found he was impersonating Vincent by using various electronics, including a burner phone, to send messages to others that would appear to be from Vincent.

Bill Barrett, an attorney representing Yarbrough, told The Sun News that Vincent’s assertion that his client impersonated Vinent is false, and he’s not sure why Vincent would make such a “foolish” claim knowing that his phone records can be subpoenaed during the course of litigation.

Text messages purportedly from Vincent to subordinates at Angier include pictures of male genitalia and a request to see a picture of a female employee’s “heiny,” according to screenshots of those messages attached to the lawsuit.

Vincent said he hadn’t read the lawsuit and didn’t plan to read it.

Surfside Beach was also recently sued by its former Police Chief Kenneth Hofmann, who resigned in May, though that complaint doesn’t specifically describe any issues with Vincent.

Angier’s former Mayor Bob Smith, listed as Vincent’s supervisor in his application, did not return a voicemail seeking comment.

Christy Adkins, who worked 2019 to 2021 in Angier under Vincent, told The Sun News she never personally received inappropriate messages from him, but she did witness other employees receiving them.

Adkins described Vincent as a poor manager who didn’t participate much in the town’s day-to-day operations and allowed a hostile work environment to fester.

Misdemeanor assault arrest

Vincent resigned in Jan. 2018 as manager for the Town of Huntersville, N.C. after a year on the job shortly after he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor simple assault, The Charlotte Observer reported.

The Huntersville Police Department confirmed that its records reflected Vincent’s arrest on the simple assault charge on Jan. 21, 2018, but no other information was available because the file was marked “restricted access,” the department told The Sun News.

Vincent told The Sun News Monday that the arrest stemmed from a personal matter involving his wife and stepson.

“My stepson was being pretty much a typical 18-year-old teenager that didn’t want responsibility and got very angry,” he said. “So I protected my wife and I’m going to leave it at that.”

The case was dismissed within two weeks and later expunged, Vincent said.

Former Huntersville Mayor John Aneralla, listed in Vincent’s application as his supervisor, told The Sun News Monday that he never received a call from anyone with Surfside Beach about Vincent.

How much did Surfside Beach know before hire?

While information about Vincent’s arrest was absent from his application, he told The Sun News that the council was made aware of it before hiring him.

William Kinken, one of three active council members in office when Vincent was hired, confirmed that council discussed the arrest, but they found the charges were dropped “and that was the end of the issue.”

Kinken noted that the issue with Angier just surfaced, but his understanding is that the issue in that town was with the police chief, not Vincent.

“Frankly these smear tactics and innuendos are not warranted,” Kinken wrote to The Sun News. “Mr. Vincent has worked hard to keep (Surfside Beach) moving forward and generating a team effort in our town.”

Former Mayor Bob Hellyer, who was in office when Vincent was hired, declined to comment. Active council members LaVerne Kreklau and Chris Stamey, who were also in office when Vincent was hired, didn’t respond to emails Monday seeking interviews.

Current Mayor Robert Krouse, who was not in office when Vincent was hired, told The Sun News Monday he wasn’t aware of the recent Angier lawsuit, but he had heard about the 2018 arrest on social media.

“I already met (Vincent) by then and I thought, ‘I’m not interested in looking into this, even,’” Krouse said, praising Vincent’s professionalism in the time he’s worked with him.

After speaking to a Sun News reporter, Krouse contacted Vincent about the Angier lawsuit, according to Vincent, who said that was the first he’d heard about it.

Vincent received mixed responses during his most recent performance reviews from town council members, with scores ranging from 11-19 out of a possible 25 points, according to his personnel file.

Critiques within those reviews included hiring personnel that have quit and a need for Vincent to better understand the town’s ordinances, while most praised his temperament and the support he appears to have from his staff.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Aug. 13, 2024 at 12:18 p.m. to correct Mayor Krouse’s last name, which was misspelled in a previous version.