PRICHARD, Ala. — The former Prichard finance director accused of taking overtime pay she was not entitled to says the criminal case against her is payback. Her attorney told a Mobile County courtroom Monday that the charge grew out of a political fight between Mayor Carletta Davis and the Prichard City Council, and that Kim Wilson was punished for processing a payment that funded an investigation of the city’s finances.
Wilson faces one count of theft by deception. She appeared Monday, Sept. 21, 2026, for a preliminary hearing, where defense attorney Christine Hernandez asked that the charge be dismissed. Mayor Davis took the stand and denied that Wilson’s firing had anything to do with retaliation. The hearing did not finish Monday, and testimony is expected to resume on a date that has not yet been set.
A $5,500 Check at the Center of the Defense
Hernandez’s argument begins in May. That month, the Prichard City Council used discretionary funds to hire an investigator to conduct a forensic audit of city finances. Wilson, who was finance director at the time, issued the $5,500 check that paid for that work.
Wilson later filed an ethics complaint against Davis. In it, Wilson alleges she was fired the day after she processed the payment for the audit.
Hernandez told reporters she has no doubt about the motive behind the case.
“Absolutely, I think it’s retaliation,” Hernandez said. “The mayor was unhappy with the fact that she was getting investigated.”
According to Hernandez, Wilson was caught in the middle of an ongoing financial dispute between the mayor and the council. That dispute has played out publicly throughout 2026, including a lawsuit between the two branches of city government that went to mediation this summer without a resolution, along with repeated clashes over the budget and the future of the city’s police department.
The Mayor’s Account: Overtime Approved, But Not for Wilson
Davis denied from the witness stand that Wilson was fired in retaliation. The mayor testified that she approved overtime for finance department staff so they could catch up on work tied to the city’s new accounting software. That approval, she said, did not extend to Wilson.
Davis described Wilson as a salaried administrative employee, a classification that, in the mayor’s view, would not make her eligible for overtime pay.
Hernandez pushed back by pointing to Wilson’s employment contract. According to the defense, the contract states that Wilson earned $62,000 a year at a rate of $20.80 an hour. Hernandez argued that language shows Wilson was an hourly employee who could earn overtime for extra time worked.
“She was working on Saturdays, working on Sundays, and she was doing so at the demand of the mayor,” Hernandez said. “I can’t have my employees just show up on a Saturday and Sunday and expect them to not get paid.”
What the Investigator Told the Court
Mobile County Sheriff’s Office investigator Todd Partin testified about how the case came to light. According to Partin, the city’s new finance director discovered the overtime payments and reported them to Davis, who then contacted authorities.
Partin said payroll records from ADP, the payroll processing company, showed Wilson was paid for 88 overtime hours between January and May. The criminal complaint alleges those payments amounted to $3,933 in taxpayer money that Wilson was not entitled to receive.
Partin testified that Wilson’s contract did not contain a provision allowing her to earn overtime. He also told the court there are other ongoing investigations involving Wilson. One of them, he said, stemmed from a complaint made by the mayor. Another did not.
Partin did not describe the subject of those other investigations in the testimony, and no additional charges have been announced.
Salaried or Hourly: Why the Label Matters
The dispute over Wilson’s classification is the heart of the case, and it is a question that comes up often in public and private workplaces alike. Under federal wage law, most employees are entitled to overtime pay at time-and-a-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Certain employees, commonly described as “exempt,” are not. Exempt status generally depends on how a worker is paid, how much they are paid and what kind of duties they perform, with executive, administrative and professional roles most often falling into the exempt category.
Whether a particular public employee is eligible for overtime can also depend on the terms of an employment contract and on local personnel policies. That is why the language in Wilson’s contract, including the reference to an hourly rate, has become a focal point for the defense, while prosecutors and the mayor emphasize Wilson’s role as a department head and the absence of any overtime provision.
A criminal theft case, however, is not the same as a wage dispute. To win a conviction for theft by deception, prosecutors must prove that a person knowingly obtained control over someone else’s property through deception, with the intent to deprive the owner of it. The question in court is not only whether Wilson was eligible for overtime but whether the state can show she knowingly took money she knew she was not entitled to.
How a Preliminary Hearing Works
In Alabama, a preliminary hearing is held in district court to determine whether there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that the defendant committed it. It is not a trial, and the judge does not decide guilt or innocence. The standard of proof is far lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required at trial.
If the judge finds probable cause, the case is typically bound over to a grand jury, which decides whether to return an indictment. If the judge finds no probable cause, the charge can be dismissed, although prosecutors may still present the matter to a grand jury.
Defense attorneys often use preliminary hearings to test the state’s evidence and to question witnesses under oath, as Hernandez did Monday in asking for dismissal. The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment until the preliminary hearing is complete.
Part of a Turbulent Year at Prichard City Hall
Wilson’s case is one thread in a string of investigations and conflicts that have consumed Prichard’s government in 2026. The city’s police department has been the subject of a sweeping corruption probe that has resulted in charges against members of its leadership, and the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office has been providing law enforcement services in the city. At the same time, the mayor and council have been locked in disputes over spending authority, the budget and the direction of city departments.
Wilson was charged earlier this year after she turned herself in and was booked into the Mobile County Metro Jail. She was released on bond. The case alleges the overtime payments were made between January and May 2026, while she led the finance department.
Wilson, like any defendant, is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
What Comes Next
The preliminary hearing will continue at a later date that has not been set. Once testimony concludes, the judge will decide whether the case moves forward. Meanwhile, Wilson’s ethics complaint against Davis remains pending, and investigator Partin’s testimony indicates that additional reviews involving the former finance director are still underway.
For Prichard residents, the outcome may offer some clarity on a question that has hovered over city hall for months: where legitimate oversight ends and political score-settling begins. Both sides are expected to present more evidence when the hearing resumes.
More From the Hearing: Missing Names, a Council Member’s Testimony and Christmas Lights
Additional details from Monday’s proceedings in Mobile County District Court shed more light on both sides of the case against Kimberly Gardner Wilson. The hearing lasted about three hours before District Judge Zachary Moore halted proceedings for the day. Moore said he will pick another day to hear the rest of the evidence, and Hernandez said she intends to call several more witnesses.
Investigator Todd Partin, described in some accounts of the hearing as an investigator with the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office, testified that the charge against Wilson grew out of a larger probe into double dipping and time theft. That investigation has already produced charges against several high-ranking members of the Prichard Police Department. Wilson is the first non-police employee to be charged.
Partin said Wilson claimed 88 overtime hours from Jan. 16 to May 8. He also testified that when he first reviewed payroll records, Wilson’s name had been removed from all but a single payroll registry.
“It gave me the impression Ms. Wilson, as the author, had removed her name from those records,” he testified. Hernandez strenuously denied that allegation.
Mayor Carletta Davis testified that she continued the contract Wilson had from the prior administration. She said the department faced a large backlog and that she instructed Wilson and other employees to work extra days to tackle it, but that Wilson, as a supervisor, could not receive overtime and that she did not authorize it. “There’s not overtime for salaried employees,” Davis said.
On cross-examination of both the mayor and the investigator, Hernandez noted that the contract does not explicitly say Wilson was ineligible for overtime and does not call her a salaried employee, but instead references an hourly rate. City Councilwoman Stephani Johnson-Norwood backed that reading from the witness stand. “I understand that as an hourly employee,” she testified.
“She’s an hourly employee,” Hernandez said after the hearing, adding that she plans to call at least one witness who will testify that the mayor authorized Wilson to receive overtime. “We have disputing and conflicting testimony,” she said.
Hernandez also described the timeline differently than the ethics complaint summarized above, saying the mayor fired Wilson about a week after she processed the council-authorized payment for the independent investigation, and that the district attorney’s office filed the criminal charge not long after. “My client’s not the only person to have been terminated,” Hernandez said.
Wilson’s state ethics complaint, filed last month, also accuses the mayor of instructing her to pay for rented Christmas lights for the city’s Christmas Extravaganza event out of a fund designated for stormwater purposes. “I made those payments under duress and at the direction of the Mayor,” Wilson wrote in the complaint.