Back from deployment, he says the pay cuts and redone training were only the start

A decorated military police veteran says King County treated his deployment as a burden, halved his pay when he came home, then fired him on his two-year anniversary.

The deputy spent roughly 24 years in uniform - the Marine Corps, the Army, and finally the Army National Guard - before retiring in January 2025. Now, according to a complaint filed August 10, 2026, in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, he is suing his former employer, King County, saying it treated his military service as a problem to manage rather than an obligation to respect.

The filing brings claims under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA - the federal law that protects servicemembers' civilian jobs - along with Washington's Law Against Discrimination.

According to the complaint, the county hired him as an entry-level sheriff's deputy in January 2023 with full knowledge of his National Guard commitments. He had disclosed his service during the background investigation, and county representatives confirmed they understood their obligations under USERRA, the filing says.

The friction began, the complaint alleges, when he gave notice of a deployment set for October 2023. Supervisors "expressed frustration," according to the filing, and held him back from field training that September - reasoning, the complaint says, that it made no sense to advance him weeks...

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