‘Total betrayal.’ Emotional testimony in ex-Benton County sheriff abuse trial
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Six deputies sue Benton County, seeking millions over Hatcher's alleged abuse.
- Testimony about intimidation, stress-related health issues and whistleblower claim.
- Jurors will hear witnesses on former sheriff’s conduct and fallout.
For most of the past six years, Lt. Jason Erickson has been one of the most prominent faces for rank and file deputies of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
Over the course of two days of testimony in a Walla Walla courtroom, he struggled to keep his composure while testifying about the alleged psychological abuse and “betrayal” the deputies were subjected to by former Sheriff Jerry Hatcher.
He testified that he faced near daily pressure and harassment from the sheriff, over the course of nearly two years, to the point where he feared for his safety and others.
“I felt that Jerry Hatcher would come after me, if we wound up in a dark alley together that he would hurt me, beat me up, kill me,” Erickson said. “I was extremely worried about that happening to me. He was a caged animal with all that going on, and I was extremely worried about my safety.”
Erickson is one of six current and former deputies and members of the Benton County sheriff’s command staff suing the county over Hatcher’s behavior. The group, who are asking for millions in damages, are Mat Clarke, Jason Erickson, Jon Law, Erik Magnuson, Steve Caughey and Todd Carlson. Caughey and Carlson allege they were forced out of their jobs.
Erickson, who was the department’s public information officer during most of Hatcher’s tenure, self-demoted because of the daily harassment he says he suffered at the hands of the former sheriff. He was the first of about a dozen expected witnesses in the trial, which could last weeks.
His emotional testimony was at times interrupted by objections from Benton County’s attorney, Andrew Cooley, who wants to convince jurors the county isn’t obligated to pay for the fallout they believe was resolved when voters eventually ousted Hatcher from office in 2021.
Cooley twice called for a mistrial. First over what he felt was unfair to allow into evidence and then over a comment Erickson made about believing the domestic violence allegations from the sheriff’s ex-wife, Monica Hatcher, in 2019. She is expected to take the witness stand later in the trial.
Cooley told jurors during his opening arguments to remember three things: the case is against Benton County, not Hatcher; the deputies’ damages should be assessed individually; and that the recall process worked and Hatcher was held accountable.
Cooley has the task of trying to keep the jury focused on the impact to just these six deputies, rather than re-litigating the recall complaint. The jury will need to decide if the county did enough to protect them, but they won’t be considering if the county should have done more to remove Hatcher.
Shock, disbelief, shame
Erickson told the jury he always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and go into law enforcement.
“I love helping people and I love my community. I grew up there, and I always wanted to serve my community in some form or fashion,” he testified.
He teared up talking about the oath he swore when receiving his law enforcement commission and what that commitment meant to him.
“The main part of that oath is upholding the constitution of Washington, so that when I come to your house you know this is someone I can trust. I take that oath very seriously,” he said.
Erickson told the jury that while he had no reason to believe Hatcher was going to mistreat employees and, at first, supported his bid for sheriff, he quickly realized the sheriff’s public persona didn’t match who he was behind closed doors.
He was aware that Hatcher’s previous marriage ended on bad terms, but said he believed in second chances and thought Hatcher had changed.
He described him as a lawman obsessed with his own image, tasking him with promoting his campaign over focusing on the department’s work and fixating on negative comments people made on social media.
Soon after being appointed sheriff, Hatcher began bullying his leadership staff in their morning meetings, Erickson said. Hatcher would “put them on their heels” and demand they cut overtime, then tell staff he never made those directives to the commanders.
Erickson said he had his first confrontation with the former sheriff after Hatcher won his election, but before he was accused of domestic violence by his now ex-wife.
“I asked him if I could stay behind, and I told him to ‘never talk to me that way again, I don’t work like that, we are on the same team,’” Erickson said.
Hatcher responded by claiming he was just mentoring the command staff and teaching them how to deal with conflict. He then pulled Erickson out of the daily command staff meetings, making him meet one on one at 6 a.m. each day.
Erickson described how those meetings would soon be marked by intimidation, paranoia over complaints and demands for loyalty.
He said he was so uncomfortable by the behavior that he began warning the other command staff about Hatcher’s plans to throw them under the bus.
Escalating behavior
After the domestic violence allegations surfaced, Hatcher’s bad behavior escalated. Erickson said he began feeling physically sick in the morning, dreading the daily confrontations with his boss.
He felt betrayed and ashamed by the sheriff’s behavior. He had learned about the accusations in media coverage from the Tri-City Herald, not from Hatcher himself.
At first Hatcher denied allegations he had abused his wife.
“I was shocked. My world was just spinning because I was totally caught off guard by the information and didn’t know what to do with it,” Erickson said.
Then, he said the sheriff asked him to do something that would permanently damage their relationship. He wanted Erickson to write a press release addressing the charges.
He said Hatcher told him, “I want you to tell them I’m innocent. I didn’t do it, my wife is crazy. She’s on pills and she’s mental.”
Erickson refused.
“I said, ‘Can I be frank? I don’t think you should have me do that. You shouldn’t have anyone do that,” he testified.
“I was in shock, disbelief, ashamed to be associated with this person,” he said. “I believe in morals and ethics and living the way you proclaim to live. I felt total betrayal because he was doing exactly what he promised to never do again.”
Erickson said as new details came to light, he learned about them from Herald coverage, and Hatcher was furious that Erickson would ask about it.
“My counter was, ‘Your life just collided with the sheriff’s office, and you’re disrespecting the sheriff’s office,’” he said.
Erickson said Hatcher remained obsessed with his own image, angling himself so that cameras would not pick up on the fact he could no longer carry a firearm because of a temporary domestic violence protection order. He also began making threats about firing anyone who talked to his wife, Erickson said.
When the jail was taken away from Hatcher by the Benton County commissioners, he ordered the command staff to strip the jailers of their guns, badges and patches. He even demanded they take rugs from the jail.
As Hatcher’s behavior escalated, and it came to light he had been squirreling away more than 13,000 rounds of county-owned ammo, the command staff had a meeting to discuss what to do while Hatcher was on a brief personal leave to deal with the allegations.
Erickson said he found out about the ammo when he was shopping and his wife, and they ran into Monica Hatcher. He said he felt sick and afraid for his job for talking to her, but was concerned about what she had found.
Erickson said he told his fellow deputies that he was worried a crime had been committed by taking the ammo from the sheriff’s office and that the guns and ammo found were potentially a violation of the protective order against Hatcher. A photo entered into evidence show about 10 rifles were found.
“I expressed that I did not feel like we could ever go back to the way things were before these allegations, and I had drawn my line in the sand,” Erickson said. “I hoped that he would resign and that he would never come back to the sheriff’s office.”
He went on to describe the stress the situation put him order.
Retaliation
Erickson said the pressure from Hatcher was taking a huge toll on his personal life.
“I would come home and close myself in my room because I didn’t know how to deal what was going on,” he said. “I thought I was going crazy.”
It built to the point he said he had a public breakdown, and then later thought he was having a heart attack.
After the medical incident, the sheriff’s office guild released a letter stating they’d held a successful “no confidence” vote on Hatcher and called for an independent third-party investigation.
Erickson said he chose to self demote to a sergeant position, rather than live with the constant stress of wondering if he was going to be fired.
“In the deputies guild they at least have some protections. It’s harder to just fire somebody or demote somebody,” Erickson testified.
“I took a substantial pay cut, my wife supported me in doing this, but I knew it would be a hardship on my family,” he said. “I worked so hard for that position as a lieutenant, and it was hard to give that up and go back down to this position.”
Erickson also filed a whistleblower’s complaint against Hatcher after demoting himself.
“I wanted to bring attention to what I perceived as crime that Jerry Hatcher was committing and immoral and unethical behavior within the Benton County Sheriff’s Office,” he said.
Erickson said he left work thinking he had some time off, but was immediately called back into the office.
He came back around noon and left the meeting with Hatcher four to five hours later, after being questioned about the complaints. Hatcher at first allegedly refused to allow Erickson to bring his attorney into the conversation, and threatened to suspend or fire him if he didn’t answer the questions.
After refusing to answer questions without an attorney, Hatcher gave Erickson 15 minutes to get an attorney to the office. Once his lawyer arrived, the questioning erupted into an argument with Hatcher allegedly claiming only he could investigate himself.
At one point an attorney for the county pulled Hatcher out of the meeting, trying to put a stop to it. Erickson said he heard arguing and a loud bang, which he believes was a chair being thrown.
Erickson said he was forced to confess he filed the whistleblower complaint and that Monica Hatcher had told him about the ammo.
“I was worried about her. Here he says he’s going to do a criminal investigation. Is he going to interview her, is he going to do a search warrant on her house?” Erickson said. “What’s he going to do to Monica? ... I was also worried about my safety.”
He said this meeting highlighted what he perceived as the county not protecting the deputies from Hatcher.
“I didn’t know Jerry Hatcher’s state of mind, but my biggest fear was that he could kill me, and that was real to me,” he said.
Fighting back
Erickson would go on to help organize the recall election effort against Hatcher.
He said that although they believed their chance of success was “slim to none” the deputies felt they needed to try.
While this was happening, he was also starting to consider having to move his family away from the Tri-Cities to find a new job.
“I didn’t want to surrender the agency to Jerry Hatcher. He had utterly destroyed it,” he said. “It’s an agency that is very dear to me, and although I was struggling, I was willing to fight to protect the agency and the integrity of it.”
An August 2021 countywide vote resulted in nearly 75% of voters supporting removing Hatcher from his post.
It was the first time in Washington state history that a sheriff was successfully recalled from office.
“I remember wanting to vomit. I was really nervous not knowing how this was going to end for my family,“ Erickson said.
He broke down while talking about the moment the initial election results came in, and he realized they had won. It wasn’t the end though, he worried Hatcher would retaliate with violence.
Erickson was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The other deputies involved also received a diagnosis of PTSD or chronic adjustment disorder, according to their attorneys.
“I love being a cop. I believe in this profession,” he said. “I think it’s a very noble profession and I didn’t think that I should have to lose my livelihood and love of this profession to someone who is destroying it and could (not) care less about the standards we hold as police officers.”
Erickson spent the bulk of the first two days of the trial on the witness stand. Cooley was able to begin his cross-examination Thursday afternoon following about seven hours of testimony.
The cross-examination focused on whether Hatcher retaliated after the whistleblower complaint, with Cooley trying to show the jury that the two men had little to no interaction afterward and that legal processes were respected.
He also asked if Erickson had completed various recommended mental health treatment plans, which he said he was unable to due to the cost.
In the coming weeks the other deputies involved in the lawsuit are expected to testify, as well as other Benton County officials and experts in economic loss and mental health. The trial is off on Friday, Monday and Tuesday and set to continue Wednesday.
This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
