By Jacob Moore
The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.
CENTRALIA, Wash. — Lewis County has granted indemnity to nine employees of the Lewis County jail, including Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Chief Chris Sweet, in response to a civil rights lawsuit filed by an inmate.
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution to grant indemnity to a group of Lewis County Jail employees and any of their spouses during the board’s weekly business meeting Tuesday morning.
The long list of county employees includes Sweet, Jesse Anderson, Tristan Dickey, Christopher Tawes, Giovanny Dominguez Gonzales, Adam Rosales-Reyes, Nathaniel Gluck, Andrea Lowe and Kevin Schultz.
The defendants are represented by Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer and Lewis County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecutor David E. Bailey.
Lewis County Jail inmate Kyle Dean Scott filed a handwritten lawsuit against employees of the Lewis County Jail in both their individual and official capacities in federal court at the end of December 2025. In the complaint with the District Court for the Western District of Washington, Scott alleges mistreatment of himself and other inmates undergoing mental health treatment. He argues that actions by staff violated his constitutional rights under the first and 14th amendments.
According to court documents, Scott alleges that staff of the jail intentionally aggravated inmates receiving mental health treatment by hiding individual playing cards during a search of the Lewis County Jail’s mental health unit.
“Aggravating mental health conditions of pretrial detainees with paranoid delusions and further gaslighting them is a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” reads the complaint filed in federal court.
Scott further alleges that he and other inmates were punished in retaliation for filing a grievance over the previous action by being separated from one another and placed in solitary confinement.
In the complaint, Scott requests a number of relief measures to be ordered by the court. First and foremost, he lists a request for a third-party review of his grievances filed from within the jail alleging improper treatment.
He also requests financial compensation for damages to the tune of half a million dollars and punitive fines against the county in the amount of $800,000.
The latest action in the ongoing lawsuit occurred earlier this month on Tuesday, July 14 , when the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Theresa L. Fricke, ordered the complaint of the lawsuit be served to the defendant parties.
By granting indemnity to its employees, Lewis County is allowing those employees to be represented by county representation without cost. Indemnity also protects the individuals from further financial liability, with the local government taking on those liabilities instead.
This is the second time this year that Lewis County has granted indemnity to a group of employees.
In the first instance, the county granted indemnity to four county employees — County Commissioner Sean Swope , Sheriff Rob Snaza, Meyer and Coroner Warren McLeod.
The employees were named in a lawsuit filed by former Deputy Coroner Paul Bromm, who was fired comments and content were shared on his personal social media page regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Read more about that case online at https://tinyurl.com/4ay6hcns.
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