NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Thursday night, the I-Team showed how an elected official was absent from the office half the time it watched him.

Video: Questioned Official Seeks Trust From Residents

Davidson County Juvenile Court Clerk Vic Lineweaver is the subject of the I-Team’s investigation, and the I-Team also has indications that Lineweaver’s staff may have been covering for him.

Lineweaver said he's done nothing wrong and he wanted to talk about it when he contacted the I-Team and requested a second interview. Lineweaver doesn't deny that the I-Team’s cameras showed him out of the office so much, but, he said residents need to trust him.

“In your case, nobody knows what you're doing because you're at home,” I-Team reporter Jeremy Finley told Lineweaver.

“The job is being done,” Lineweaver said.

Lineweaver defended his work and his work habits after the I-Team followed him and found him out of the office half of the time he was followed, despite being arrested six months ago after being accused of not doing his job.

The I-Team’s cameras trailed him for seven randomly chosen days in which payroll shows him working the full 56 hours, but the I-Team found him out of the office for 28 of those hours.

Since he's the court clerk, court officials said the office is where his job is. One day, Finley reported, the I-Team found Lineweaver coming to work at almost 4 p.m.

Another day, the I-Team spotted him in his bathrobe at 2:45 p.m. getting his mail at his home. He didn't know the I-Team was outside his house watching when he told Finley he was at work.

“Did I catch you at a lunch or something?" Finley asked Lineweaver.

“Me, no. I'm meeting about this grant,” Lineweaver said.

“Let's be clear. When I called you, you told me you were in a meeting, but we just saw you in your bathrobe at home,” Finley said.

“I believe you, and I don't recollect that Jeremy. I really don't, and I apologize,” Lineweaver said.

The response is something the I-Team heard not only from Lineweaver, but from his staff more than once, including the day the I-Team first interviewed him at his home. In his doorway, he told Finley he was home sick, but his staff told another story.

“Mr. Lineweaver is at an out-of-base meeting right now. May I take a message for him?" a staffer said.

“Did you say he's at a meeting right now?" Finley asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know when he's going to be back to the office?"

“I would say check back probably in 45 minutes."

“I don't think anybody really knows where you're at. Like today, we called the office, and they said you were in a meeting and would be in in 45 minutes,” Finley said.

"No, I'm here, I'm home sick. Whoever you talked to, maybe they were just taking care of me,” Lineweaver said.

Finley said it wasn’t clear what Lineweaver meant by his staff "taking care of me.” Finley asked him the question again when he requested a second interview.

“Your office told us twice that you were in a meeting."

“I believe you."

“Is someone instructing your office to tell people that you're in a meeting when you're really at home?"

“No, I don't instruct them, and none of our administrative instructed them to do that. They made a mistake or something. I don't know."

Being out of the office 28 of 56 hours, his $100,000 a year salary, saying he was in a meeting about a grant while he was in a bathrobe in his home is all hard to believe, said taxpayer rights advocates.

"It's almost like a bad comedy. I mean, you know, you can't make this stuff up,” said advocate Ben Cunningham.

Chief juvenile court Judge Betty Adams Green, who depends on Lineweaver’s work, emphasized that the clerk's job lies in the office and being in the courthouse when court is in session

“I don't know how you manage with that schedule. But that's his job to manage a full-time office on what's essentially part-time hours,” she said.

But Lineweaver said he is working all the time -- only from home and on weekends.

“It's a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job,” he said. “I get more work done on a Saturday and Sunday by myself than I do being in the office."

But an audit shows the clerk's main duties occur when the courts are in session during the week. Lineweaver said he knows if he's not in the office, the public must take him on faith value that he's working.

“They need to take your word for it that you're home working,” Finley said.

“I’m asking them to trust me. I'm either at home working or I'm speaking at an elementary school,” Lineweaver said.

The I-Team wanted to know if Lineweaver's at-home and weekend work hours are usual for juvenile clerks, so it checked with elected clerks who oversee juvenile courts in Milwaukee, Charlotte and Denver -- three cities comparable in size to Nashville -- all of whom said they work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday in the office.

“Jeremy, you're human just like I am. Maybe I need to be there and attentive more often, so I'm probably going to change that. But I can get the same results if I'm there or at the house,” Lineweaver said.

“You going to run again in two years?" Finley said.

“Yes, sir."

“You’re planning on it already?”

“Yes sir, and I'm looking forward to it, and I appreciate your vote in 2010."

Lineweaver also said he comes to the office at odd hours to do things such as get a file for police. He said he keeps a log of the days he's sick, but he does not share that with the city's payroll.