Supervisor alleges sheriff said she was 'using gender as a cover' to hide 'failures as a leader'
The county’s board of supervisors was not the sheriff’s employer, given that it lacked the powers to hire, fire, and discipline the elected public official, the California Court of Appeal said in a recent case.
In Essick v. County of Sonoma et al., a county sheriff participated in an August 2020 town hall meeting regarding wildfires in Sonoma County to give evacuation strategy updates. In response to a question from the public, he refused to allow evacuated residents to re-enter mandatory evacuation zones to feed pets and animals. He cited safety concerns.
After the meeting, an elected member of the county’s board of supervisors sent text messages to the sheriff to share her belief that there should be an evacuation process for pets and livestock. The sheriff replied dismissively and told her to “quit with the crap and come together for our community.”
The supervisor alleged that, in a later phone call between them, the sheriff told her that she was “using gender as a cover” to hide her “failures as a leader” and that he would expose her as a fraud. On the other hand, according to the sheriff’s version of the call, the supervisor called him a bigot, a misogynist, and a “small man with a fragile ego who is afraid of women.”
The supervisor filed a harassment complaint against the sheriff. An independent investigator’s report, commissioned by the county, found that the sheriff...
Attorneys for three friends of Nolan Xavier Wells filed six more defamation lawsuits Tuesday in federal and state court, accusing social media users of making false claims about the young men in co...