On New Year's Eve, a federal judge dismissed parts of a lawsuit against Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith, but let other pieces of the litigation proceed. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The lawsuit was filed last May by a former deputy, Dennis Reynolds, as WHSV and other news outlets previously reported. Reynolds worked for the Augusta County Sheriff's Office from 2016 to 2023. He's suing for more than $5 million and a retraction of negative references.
Court documents lay out a series of conflicts between him and his employer: Reynolds alleges the sheriff sent him numerous inappropriate, personal text messages, which he supposedly asked Reynolds to delete when the deputy was under investigation by state police for delaying a report of his brother's single-vehicle car accident.
Then, following a spinal tumor diagnosis, Reynolds went through physical and mental health struggles and took a number of days off work, leading to disputes between him and supervisors over alleged sick leave violations and performance issues. Reynolds claims the sheriff retaliated against him for refusing to sign disciplinary letters, eventually leading to his forced resignation. Afterwards, he claims the sheriff defamed him by petitioning the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services to decertify him as a law enforcement officer, although Reynolds successfully appealed that.
He also says Smith defamed him by passing along a so-called "Brady letter" about Reynolds to potential employers, including the Nelson County Sheriff's Office. Brady letters are issued by a prosecutor's office, and disclose to defense attorneys and, often, law enforcement leadership, that the officer's trustworthiness has been compromised in some way.
In court filings, Smith characterized the accusations as "false and inflammatory." Reynold's attorney did not respond to WMRA's request for an interview, and Smith's attorney declined to comment.
On December 31, U.S. District Judge Jasmine Yoon ruled against Reynolds on many of his claims, but allowed one to proceed – his claim that his due process rights were violated when Smith sought his decertification without giving him a chance to defend his credibility. Yoon also wrote that Reynolds has 21 days to file an amended complaint concerning his First Amendment and defamation claims, or else those will also be dismissed with prejudice.
