Sheriff responds to compaint with countersuit

By Jerry Sena

jtsena@wataugademocrat.com

Attorneys for Watauga County Sheriff Mark Shook filed an answer Monday to claims he sexually harassed and wrongfully fired his chief deputy last year.

The 14-page document denies all allegations in the suit filed in federal court for former chief deputy Paula Townsend last month.

Shook and his attorneys also included a countersuit accusing Townsend of slander. The countersuit asks for punitive and other damages from Townsend.

The suit claims Townsend told at least one person in June 2005 that Shook “forced himself on her.”

Shook’s attorneys say Townsend made the claim “out of spite,” knowing it was false, or, “with reckless disregard” for their accuracy.

The document alleges that the backlash has “[deprived] him of his good name, reputation, and the esteem of his professional associates, friends and acquaintances,” while exposing him to “public scorn, contempt, ridicule, and disgrace.”

The counter-suit states that Shook believes Townsend has continued the defamatory statements to his “friends, business associates, social acquaintances and other members of the public at large,” throughout Watauga, Avery and Wilkes counties.

Townsend’s 11-page complaint, filed June 14 in Statesville’s U.S. District Court, alleges Shook fired her because she’d refused his sexual advances.

Attorneys for Shook and co-defendant Watauga County have until Aug. 7 to answer a second sexual harassment lawsuit filed June 23 for former county communications chief Patricia Shook.

Unlike Townsend’s, Patricia Shook’s suit makes no claim of sexual advances but focuses on gender bias as the basis for continued harassment and her eventual firing.

Townsend’s suit, however, claims that on New Year’s Eve 2002, Shook told her of “his interest in engaging in a personal relationship with her.”

Townsend claims when she rejected Shook’s advances, he began assigning her to work “specifically with him.”

As they worked together, Townsend’s complaint continues, Shook “continually expressed his desire to engage in a personal relationship with (her).”

The suit claims Shook also “touched her inappropriately in a sexual manner on several occasions,” and, “...made sexual comments to her regarding his sexual fantasies and his past sexual experiences.”

The sheriff, who will face Democrat Len “L.D.” Hagaman in November’s election, has characterized the charges as fabrications contrived by political opponents who “are trying to discredit me to the voters.”

County attorney Andrea Capua has said much the same.

“To me, it’s pretty obviously politically motivated, because [Townsend] put [the lawsuit] out to the press before Mark was even served. Paula’s the one getting it out to the press, so she obviously has no problem with this stuff being out there.”

Hagaman has refused to comment. He issued a press release last month stating he had “no position” on the lawsuits or the allegations against his Republican opponent.

Rumors of the lawsuits began to heat up just before the May 2 primary election, in which Shook was expected to face a stiff challenge from retired deputy sheriff Joe Moody.

Although it was known by several that a complaint was being processed before the primary, the first suit was not filed until a month and a half after the election and Moody’s campaign failed in a landslide loss to incumbent Shook.

Whatever political undercurrents may exist in the lawsuit filings, Shook and Capua have said they are not of the Democrat-Republican variety.

Shook has said, “When I said it was politically motivated, I didn’t mean by any party, but by certain individuals who want to hurt me and who want me out of office in retaliation for being terminated.”

Capua said, “I don’t think this is Democrat versus Republican. The political motive is to get [Shook] out of office. [Townsend] would have loved for Mark to have lost the primary so she could have a way back into the sheriff’s department.”

Townsend’s attorney, Angela Gray, called the sheriff a “bad apple” whom Watauga County officials failed to “take...out of the bunch.’

The suit against the county is based in part on the claim county officials failed to take action when Townsend complained of Shook’s behavior to county manager Rocky Nelson.

Capua denied either Townsend or Patricia Shook ever took their grievances to the appropriate authorities before filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In their response to Townsend’s suit, Shook’s attorneys claimed she “failed to exhaust all available administrative remedies.”

Gray said she has evidence of Shook’s advances in the form of a letter, allegedly written in the sheriff’s own hand. In the letter, Gray said, Shook makes “inappropriate” comments regarding his feelings for Townsend.

Townsend has refused to produce a copy of the letter, though, saying it was being used in negotiations between her attorney and lawyers for Shook and the county.

Neither the county nor Shook has denied the existence of the letter, copies of which have surfaced on the Internet.

“The language of the letter is totally inappropriate coming from an employer to an employee,” Gray said. “The county of Watauga is aware of this letter, yet has done nothing about it. They allowed Mark Shook to continue as the sheriff.”

She said the county’s inaction potentially exposed other women to similar harassment.

“We can’t go back and take back the things [Shook] did to Paula,” she said. “But they can take steps to be sure it doesn’t happen to someone else.