The attorney representing Yates County and the Sheriff’s Office in a civil lawsuit filed by a corrections officer has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Matthew C. Van Vessem, Esq. of a Buffalo law firm filed the motion in U.S. District Court for the Western New York District on March 9.
Sheriff Ronald Spike declined to comment on the lawsuit, and provided the following prepared statement:
“The County of Yates has referred the Fox litigation matter to its professional liability insurance carrier. This litigation appears to be an action filed in federal civil court as an employment-related constitutional civil rights claim by Fox. The County and the Sheriff emphatically deny allegations made therein. Because this is in litigation this will be the only statement at this time.”
Corrections Officer Patricia Fox, who says her rights were violated by Sheriff Ronald Spike, Undersheriff Jack Gleason and Lieutenant Clay Rugar, the jail administrator, filed the lawsuit in January.
Fox had previously been suspended from work at the Yates County Jail in relation to allegations that she falsified her time cards to claim overtime work she had not completed. She was acquitted of three charges in criminal court following a grand jury indictment. In a Civil Service hearing she was found not guilty of those three charges but was found guilty of three other charges. From the time she was first charged on Oct. 2, 2007 to the time she returned to work on Aug. 12, 2009, she was suspended with pay for approximately 16 weeks. The rest of the time, she was unpaid.
In the lawsuit, Fox asserts that she was targeted for being a whistleblower after she complained about the behavior of other employees in the corrections department.
In her legal complaint she says there is a “Good Old Boys” culture in the department that protects some employees, and when she lodged complaints about others she was exposed as the employee who complained. She is seeking $14 million plus legal costs in this lawsuit.
The presiding Judge is Michael Telesca, who has set a motion hearing for April 22.
