Exclusive | Benton County sued for millions. Deputies claim ex-sheriff harassed and retaliated
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Sheriff Hatcher Legal Troubles
A look at the legal troubles faced by former Benton County Sheriff Jerry Hatcher
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A year ago several current and former Benton County sheriff’s deputies were prepared to sue the county for millions, but ended up putting the lawsuit on pause while an election was held to oust their tormentor.
Now, with their former boss Jerry Hatcher recalled from office, they’ve filed suit and are demanding millions for what they described as the county’s failure to protect them from Hatcher after they complained.
They claim Hatcher violated their First Amendment rights, engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct including invasion of their privacy, retaliation and defamation, and created a hostile work environment.
The lawsuit, filed in the Walla Walla County Superior Court last week, does not ask for specific damages but the original tort claim was for $22 million.
All but one of the original tort claim filers has joined the current suit. The other officer is now the sheriff.
Attorney Ronald Leighton told the Tri-City Herald that Sheriff Tom Croskrey still believes in the merits of the lawsuit, but felt it was in the public’s best interest not to join it now that he has been appointed to the office.
Leighton said Croskrey knows he could potentially be sacrificing a significant amount of money but he’s focused on the job.
Leighton is a Tacoma-based attorney and retired Federal District Court judge.
The plaintiffs are Undersheriff Jon Law; Commander Mat Clarke; Lt. Jason Erickson; Lt. Erik Magnuson; now-retired Commander Steve Caughey; and former Detective Todd Carlson.
The lawsuit states Carlson retired early in March 2021 due to retaliation from Hatcher.
The current and former employees, five of whom have served as sheriff’s department supervisors, say county leaders did not do enough after they filed whistleblower complaints and brought up allegations involving their boss.
The men filed individual claims in May 2021, and put the litigation on pause later in the summer as the recall process began.
Hatcher was successfully recalled last August, and Croskrey was appointed in September. Commander Law served as acting sheriff between the recall and Croskrey’s appointment.
At the time of the original claims, Benton County commissioners signaled public support for the employees.
Commissioner Jerome Delvin said in an email Friday that he does not support the employees filing suit against the county, though declined to comment further.
“Why didn’t they file the lawsuit against the (former) sheriff personally?” he asked.
Hatcher was the first government official in Benton County — and the first elected sheriff in Washington state — to lose office in a recall election.
Lawsuit claims
A tort claim lawsuit is similar to a civil suit, but requires aggrieved parties to first file a claim against the governmental body they are suing before they can file a formal lawsuit. Sometimes a public agency will settle the claim before it becomes a suit.
Last summer the sheriff’s office former and current officers filed tort claim notices, which Benton County had 60 days to respond to or deny. The county denied the claims.
The lawsuit stated Erickson self-demoted himself from lieutenant to sergeant to limit his interaction with Hatcher.
In addition to the other allegations, the suit claims Hatcher attempted to place the employees on what is known as The Brady List, in order to damage their credibility and future employment opportunities.
“Brady lists” are named after a Supreme Court decision requiring prosecutors to disclose to defense lawyers information about unreliable police officers or other troubles with their cases, according to The Marshall Project.
These so-called “bad cop” lists could prevent the employees, who were — and, for the most part, still are — senior leadership in the sheriff’s office, from being considered credible witnesses at criminal trials.
Caughey and another sheriff’s office employee quit in December 2020 after learning that Hatcher had unsuccessfully tried to place members of his own leadership staff on a “Brady” list because of their cooperation in a whistleblower investigation of the sheriff.
A month later in January 2021, prosecutors in Benton County placed Hatcher on a Brady List when he was possibly going to be a witness in the trial of a jail escapee.
The deputies also allege that after filing whistleblower complaints, Hatcher created a hostile work environment that included harassment and retaliation.
The new lawsuit also states that Hatcher made defamatory statements about Magnuson regarding a medical condition and politicized his private information.
The lawsuit also claims that after a SWAT incident led by Magnuson in which a suspect died, Hatcher was irate about having to deal with the media and threatened to choke Magnuson and to rewrite his job description to effectively terminate him without justification.
The lawsuit states that an investigation found the suspect died of a drug overdose and that officers acted appropriately.
The lawsuit says Hatcher threatened violence against Magnuson on several other occasions.
It also says that Hatcher threatened to fire anyone who spoke to his estranged wife, who had made allegations of domestic abuse against him. Hatcher was later investigated for allegations of witness tampering saying he had tried to force his ex-wife to recant her testimony.
After filing for divorce, Monica Hatcher filed a petition claiming Jerry Hatcher had strangled and threatened her in December 2017 when she confronted him about an ongoing extramarital affair.
Monica Hatcher later said her husband forced her to recant her abuse statements by writing a four-page email to a detective saying she is “confused about quite a lot of things” and cannot in good faith swear to what happened two years ago.
Monica Hatcher eventually sent the email so she could provide proof to her husband, but told investigators the following day that Jerry Hatcher was trying to manipulate her and other witnesses into not cooperating.
The domestic violence case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors have the option to refile charges at a later date.
This story was originally published April 23, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
