Franklin County Sheriff's Office Detective Jeff Farmer (Courtesy of FCSO)
Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Farmer has filed a defamation lawsuit against all five Franklin County public defenders for damages exceeding $1 million.
The federal lawsuit claims that the public defenders “engaged in a vile, baseless, and vicious attack” when they circulated a letter critical of Farmer’s police conduct and his attendance at the pro-Trump Washington, D.C., rally that preceded a siege of the U.S. Capitol.
Four attorneys, led by Northern Kentucky litigator Chris Wiest, filed the suit in U.S. District Court of Eastern Kentucky. The case has been assigned to Judge Karen Caldwell. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wiest has filed several high-profile lawsuits challenging government COVID-19 restrictions.
Wiest told The State Journal on Monday that he planned to file the lawsuit shortly after Franklin County Sheriff Chris Quire released the results of an independent investigation into Farmer’s conduct in Washington and in Franklin County. That investigation, per Quire, “cleared” Farmer of allegations in the letter.
“We knew that the public defenders’ letter was chock full of lies,” Wiest said. “You just can't go around defaming people, so we're gonna do something about it.”
The contents of the investigation have been called into question by the public defenders, who pointed out that Carl Christiansen — a retired FBI agent who conducted the investigation — did not interview multiple people who claim to have been traumatized by Farmer’s actions. The defenders were also critical of several of Christiansen’s methods, implications and conclusions contained in his investigation report.
The five defenders are Patrick Brennan, Cheyla Bush, Valerie Church, Kristin Gonzalez and Nathan Goodrich.
In the lawsuit, Wiest frequently cites that report and excoriates the defenders’ letter, as well as their attempts to spread the contents of the letter across traditional media and social media. He called their actions “evil.”
“Detective Farmer further seeks punitive damages against Defendants since the actions complained of were motivated by evil motive or intent and/or involved reckless or callous indifference to the federally protected rights of Plaintiff,” the complaint reads.
Wiest also says that the defenders’ actions infringed on Farmer’s constitutional rights.
“Defendants’ intentional and widespread release of their letter, all in retaliation for merely attending a rally protected under the First Amendment, is designed to deter Plaintiff, and others in his position, into not engaging in First Amendment protected activities; all of which would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in such protected conduct and speech,” the complaint reads.
The complaint states that Farmer, of Versailles, has “suffered personal harassment” and that his children have been “attacked and harassed at their school” due to the public defenders’ letter.
An angle pursued in both a press release regarding the lawsuit and the lawsuit itself is that the defenders’ letter was written in retaliation for a 2014 drug charge against William Brad McGaughey, Gonzalez’s current husband.
In 2016, McGaughey was sentenced to 12 months probation for criminal attempt to possess a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and paraphernalia charges. McGaughey is a former Franklin Circuit Court deputy clerk and was accused of having sent internal police documents to a drug dealer, per a State Journal report from 2014.
The lawsuit alleges that Gonzalez has held a grudge against Farmer for his alleged involvement in McGaughey’s case. They cite a text from Gonzalez in which she claims she has made it a “mission to screw with Farmer” and former members of the sheriff’s office.
Gonzalez did not deny that the text was hers, but did call the suit's implications "preposterous."
"If they are naming myself and my husband to try and prove some kind of personal vendetta on my part that would go back almost 7 years, that is absolutely preposterous, not to mention inaccurate," Gonzalez said. "I was not 'dating' my husband at the time for one, nor did I believe Farmer to be any part of the mentioned investigation, so it would make no sense for 'a vendetta' to be waged upon Farmer alleging that as the motivation."
The State Journal reached out to the other four public defenders for comment on the suit, but has yet to receive a response.
The attorney’s press release lauds Farmer's "exemplary" police record, particularly with regards to his drug investigations.
"Detective Farmer’s work with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office has been exemplary," it reads. "Twice he was named Deputy of the Year by the Department. His case work has substantially reduced drug trafficking activity in Franklin County, Kentucky. He has been the recipient of numerous letters of commendation in his time with the sheriff’s office."
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(7) comments
You know, if you are a public figure and you're going to seek punitive damages against some one for what they have said about you that you contend is slanderous or libelous, then your burden of proof is that you must demonstrate that what they said was incorrect. Do you really think that bringing a SLAPP suit against defense attorneys is a good idea? Especially, when they letter was a response to your own boastful emails as you bragged to your fellow officers and insurrectionists all over the world so that they could live vicariously through your exploits? Do you think that they are just gonna bend over and not fight back. Maybe you should rethink this thing through some more. Ever heard of a Tempest in a Teapot? No? How about let sleeping dogs lie?
Tell us, Jeff (I Am The Militia) Farmer, how you gonna do that? Pay $6,000 (of tax payer's dollars) to some Magnum PI guy to do a sham investigation, where he ignores your own extremely dumb Facebook braggadocio where you announce that you "have made it to the base of the steps" (a criminal offense during a riot on those steps where other police officers died or were severely beaten), or ignore the principle witnesses of your racist abuse of your oath of office? Or refusing to have your phone "broken" by the Office of the Attorney General to show who you were talking to and when, as well as where you were during the 6 hour riot that you drove 18 hours round trip to attend, and prove once and for all that you were not involved in the Capital insurrection. Is that your and Sheriff Quire's plan? Well, according to the SJ recent poll, 3/4 of the people aren't buying it. How do we hold you accountable then? I guess we have to do that through your boss.
So, I am not under any illusion that the Sheriff's hand has been played on this and he is hold'em, and hope that the people fuhgeddaboutit. He appears to be willing to take the fall for you. A wise judge once told me that the "e" in email stands for evidence. And as you know from investigating the Curtsinger Happy Pappy Bourbon case, nothing is ever truly erased from your phone, even though the delete button has been the key of choice for you lately.
Or Jeff "I Am The Militia" Farmer, you could do the right thing and voluntarily let the AG break your phone and pull up all of those deleted emails/texts to people who you admitted that you had met online and were at the insurrection riot with you. And clear your good name that you have unwittingly tarnished with your boastful indiscretions.
I guess that phone could be lost? Or does the “Cloud “ still have that info on it , even if it’s lost?
Some friendly advice to Sheriff Quire: You are doing such a good job overall. People like you! You could have a long career here as our Sheriff. Don't let Jeff Farmer be your Matt Brown.
The taxpayers paid $6,000 for Christiansen's gaslighting report, that is the epitome for how NOT to do a real investigation and still influence people (a.k.a. the Brett (I like beer) Kavanaugh Model).
Who is going to pay for this frivolous SLAPP lawsuit? A SLAPP Suit, Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation, is a suit in which the plaintiff sues an organization or person in an attempt to silence, intimidate, or punish s into dropping protests against the plaintiff.
YES !!! :-)
J.W. Smith
Why does the State Journal continue to use that photo of Farmer actually doing an official job, when you have one that Farmer posted of his daily activities preparing to join the “ wilding“ mob in Washington, while wearing his hoodie stating that “I am the militia”?
What part of the public defenders letter or a pack of lies? Where is Wiest’s proof?
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