MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A former Missoula County sheriff’s deputy is suing the county, the sheriff and other county officials saying she was fired for political reasons.
Paige Pavalone filed her lawsuit Wednesday in District Court in Helena, arguing she was penalized more severely than men in the department for supporting the election opponent of Sheriff T.J. McDermott.
McDermott won the election last year, and the 41-page complaint says he gave raises to his supporters and demotions to his opponents, some of whom resigned.
He declined to comment Wednesday, saying he hadn’t read the complaint.
McDermott and the county attorney said Pavalone was fired April 13 because she encouraged her friend, a jailer, to lie during an internal investigation into a drunken driving charge that was later dropped.
Pavalone said the investigation into the DUI charge included questions about how much contact Pavalone had with former undersheriff Josh Clark, McDermott’s opponent in last year’s election. Clark, too, was demoted and eventually resigned. He has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Bureau.
The lawsuit said Pavalone’s termination letter does not specify what she was supposedly dishonest about. It also alleges a news release about her firing libeled and slandered her, inflicted emotional distress and interfered with her future employment by branding her a liar, the Missoulian reported ((https://bit.ly/1e3fyyq ).
Pavalone’s lawsuit alleges that since McDermott was sworn into office, Pavalone was removed from a desirable assignment as the department’s public information officer, was singled out for unfair criticism, and was unjustly accused of three separate crimes. She was suspended from her job and then fired.
The lawsuit alleges a sheriff’s captain monitored Pavalone’s dinner with a county jailer at a brew pub in February, followed them when they left, and had a deputy stop the jailer on suspicion of driving under the influence.
The jailer’s blood-alcohol level was below the limit at which a person is considered legally intoxicated so the charge was dropped, the lawsuit said.
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Information from: Missoulian, https://www.missoulian.com
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