BECKLEY, W.Va. – In addition to two other pending civil suits, former Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Benjamin Hatfield now faces new allegations under a suit filed this past Friday.
Former Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Thompson lists a plethora of alleged actions by Hatfield in the filings. It also names county commissioners Gregory Duckworth, Daniel Hall and Linda Epling for allegedly being negligent in regards to the commission’s response to Hatfield’s alleged actions.
The lawsuit says Hatfield fostered a hostile work environment by “screaming/yelling in anger/rage” in his office. “These outbursts created anxiety,” the document says.
The filing further details alleged scenarios that created distress in employees.
“On occasion, he literally placed members of the office into “time-out” by imprisoning them into a small conference room and requiring that they sit there as long as an entire work day due his anger,” the document says.
The lawsuit also alleges gender based discrimination claiming that women were held to “stricter standards” and that women were subjected to sexually derogatory statements. The plaintiff says Hatfield “generally treated her as a piece of meat”.
The plaintiff also claims Hatfield would show her and her co-workers “sexually inappropriate pictures that he found of criminal defendants online, unrelated to the criminal prosecutions of said defendants” and “told Plaintiff’s colleagues sordid and lurid details about his alleged sexual affair.”
The lawsuit alleged that once Hatfield was the subject of investigations and news coverage for his alleged conduct he became “paranoid about disloyalty” and “threatened Plaintiff and her colleagues that if they were disloyal to him that they would “pay for it”.
The plaintiff also claims that “Hatfield fired attorney Chad Lilly who had been the individual who made the report of malfeasance to the circuit court judges and others, thereby making good on the threats regarding loyalty.”
As for the commission’s role in this lawsuit the plaintiff claims that “the commission defendants took no steps to remove Defendant Hatfield from the office, did not file the necessary petition, and upon information and belief, did not conduct a meaningful inquiry into the issues she and others faced and endured”.
The lawsuit also alleges that she and her co-workers had no HR personnel to report to after allegedly being subjected to Hatfield’s behavior.
To read the entire filing and all 6 counts you can click here.
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