By Tim Preston
The Daily Independent
OLIVE HILL — The Boyd County Sheriff’s Department has denied the allegations leveled against it and three of its deputies in a federal lawsuit filed in May by a retired federal correctional officer.
In its response to Jerry Miller’s lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Ashland, the sheriff’s department denies its deputies assaulted and injured Miller, or deprived him of his constitutional rights.
The defendants — who, in addition to the sheriff’s department, include Sheriff Terry Keelin and Deputies Joel Lee Workman, Jason Nattier and Carl Hall and several unidentified individuals referred to as “John Does” — request Miller’s suit be dismissed without prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled — and they be reimbursed for attorney fees incurred in defending themselves in the case.
In his lawsuit, Miller alleges deputies threatened him without provocation and wrestled him to the ground, cracking three ribs and injuring his wrist. According to the suit, the incident followed a break-in at Miller’s Catlettsburg home in June 2012 that was aborted when his wife, Michele, and children arrived while the burglars were there.
Miller drove home without seeing the truck and told a dispatcher their likely direction of travel, the suit states. Nattier spotted the truck, chased it and stopped it near the Meade Station Church of God, arresting and handcuffing both men in the vehicle.
Miller claims in the suit he subsequently received a call from dispatch advising him the sheriff’s department had two suspects and advising him anyone who had seen either the vehicle or the suspects running out of the house should come to the church to identify the alleged perpetrators. Miller, his wife and three children drove to the scene, where deputies Nattier, Hall, Workman and two other officers not named in the suit were waiting.
Miller got out of his car and walked toward the cruisers in which the suspects were held. One deputy told Miller to stay back and Workman grabbed his arm, according to the suit, with an explanation about maintaining the integrity of the case.
Miller was explaining his connection with the break-in and gesturing with his hands when Nattier ran up, pushed his shoulder, knocked his cap off and threatened to arrest him, according to the suit.
The confrontation escalated with Miller protesting, Nattier punching him in the jaw, Miller assuming a defensive posture and Nattier wrestling him to the ground assisted by Workman, according to the suit.
Hall broke up the scuffle and Miller handed him a pistol he was carrying. Miller, retired after 24 years as a correctional officer at the Federal Correctional Institution at Summit, said he carries the gun routinely.
Miller was subsequently cited for menacing, a misdemeanor, for “becoming verbal” with the deputies, but was acquitted of wrongdoing in Boyd District Court in November of last year.
In the response, the defendants acknowledge the apprehension of the burglary suspects and Miller’s arrival at the scene occurred much as described in Miller’s lawsuit. The defendants also agree Miller was told to stop and to not take any actions that might jeopardize the case against the suspects. However, they deny Nattier physically assaulted Miller or threatened to take him to jail.
The defendants also deny Miller’s claim the deputies “fabricated parts of the events” while testifying at Miller’s trial as “part of a pattern and practice of misconduct.”
The defendants also maintain Miller’s claim should be dismissed because it fails to state a claim or cause of action upon which relief may be granted; because the defendants are entitled to “qualified immunity” from suit in both their individual and official capacities; because the sheriff’s department is entitled to government and/or sovereign immunity; and because the defendants’ actions were “in all respects, reasonable, proper, justified, legal and undertaken without any wrongful intent, impact or effect.”