Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen fired Assistant District Attorney Berkley Maso due to social media posts. One post included the statement, "What ever reason we can make up to get as many of them out as possible…. Whatever means necessary." Following his dismissal, Allen ordered a review of the 93 cases Mason was associated with in the court's online database, according to WATE.
Allen's decision was revealed on Monday after it was found that Mason, a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2024, used his platform to spread messages of racism, sexism, and other discriminatory views. One of Mason's messages praised Nazism. Allen commented, "Statements like this indicate a willingness to ‘make up’ false evidence and circumvent the law in order to achieve a particular goal by ‘whatever means necessary,’" as reported by WVLT.
Berkley Mason was dismissed from his position, and District Attorney General Allen stated, "It is imperative that prosecutors in my office be moral, ethical, fair-minded persons who are able to apply the laws of our state justly to each set of facts presented on a case-by-case basis." Mason had interned with both the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Knox County District Attorney’s Office and, "While in law school, he was very active in the UT Legal Clinic, working on matters ranging from expungement to non-profit entity formation," as mentioned by WBIR. His dismissal follows the resignation of Assistant DA Robert DeBusk, who was accused of perjury. The review of Mason's cases will affect the Knox County justice community.
