A Wilkesboro police officer was dropped from a federal civil-rights lawsuit after a $100,000 settlement was reached with the plaintiff last month, town officials said yesterday.
Wilkesboro's insurance carrier will pay most of the money, with the town paying a $10,000 deductible.
The lawsuit alleges that Wilkes County law-enforcement officers had beaten Paul Douglas Absher of Boomer in 2007. Absher -- who was hospitalized for two weeks after his arrest on charges of assault on a law-enforcement officer and resisting an officer -- is seeking $20 million.
Wilkesboro Police Lt. Rocky Moore was dismissed from the lawsuit after mediation last month. In a response to the lawsuit, Moore said he used his Taser once on Absher, but did not beat him. The town's statement said that the settlement its insurance carrier made the settlement, and the council was not consulted.
"The Mayor and Town Council unanimously believe that Lieutenant Rocky L. Moore did nothing wrong in his actions on the occasion that resulted in this lawsuit," the statement said. It added that if the case had gone to trial "Lieutenant Rocky L. Moore would not have been found liable for any of his actions, in that all of his actions on this occasion were entirely proper and in accordance with good police procedure."
State law requires such settlements to be made public after a reasonable time period. The town council was told about it Monday in closed session; then it was announced in open session.
Three Wilkes County sheriff's deputies --Harper Hartley, Harold Martin and Gene Wyatt -- as well as Sheriff Dane Mastin and the Wilkes County Sheriff's Office remain as defendants in the lawsuit.
The suit contends that Absher was standing by a road waiting for his girlfriend when he was approached by a deputy, kicked, shocked at least 10 times with a Taser, and beaten with flashlights and batons -- an assault that continued after his hands were cuffed behind his back.
His skull was fractured, and he was hospitalized at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center for 14 days, five of them in a medically induced coma, the suit says.
A judge dismissed criminal charges against Absher this past summer after testimony that the county had lost part of a video at the jail intake. Absher claims that he was beaten there, too. The prosecutor has appealed the dismissal of the criminal charges to the N.C. Court of Appeals.
Absher's attorney, John Vermitsky of Winston-Salem, said yesterday that he expects the civil case against the remaining defendants to go to trial. "We think our client has a very strong case at trial," Vermitsky said.
Wilkes County Attorney Tony Triplett said that the county is "continuing to defend the case strongly because we feel our officers did not do anything wrong."
mmitchell@wsjournal.com
336-667-5691
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