Ex-sheriff plotted to ‘get rid of the old bastards.’ It’ll cost Jackson County $5.3M
Jackson County taxpayers will spend $5.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a former sheriff’s deputy who alleged that, because of his age, he was harassed and eventually forced out of his job by former Sheriff Mike Sharp and under sheriff Hugh Mills.
The county legislature voted Monday to transfer money out of the general fund to settle the lawsuit brought by Doug Caster, who will turn 67 later this month.
He was fired in December 2015 and filed his age discrimination case the following October. A Jackson County jury awarded him nearly $7 million last spring after a nine-day trial. His legal team then asked a judge to award attorney fees on top of that.
The county petitioned the Missouri Court of Appeals to overturn the case, but then agreed to settle for a lesser amount before the appeal was heard.
Caster alleged that he was the victim of a campaign by Sharp and Mills to, as he says they were overheard saying, “get rid of the old bastards” on the payroll after Sharp took office in 2009. In his lawsuit, Caster said he noticed that a number of senior deputies were fired or forced to resign during Sharp’s tenure.
Mills also allegedly made derogatory comments about “sick guys” who took time off work to address health issues.
Caster, who was 59 at the time, said he was harassed because of his age and health conditions. Caster served nearly 34 years with the sheriff’s office. He twice took medical leave for treatment of complications from his diabetes. He alleges that Mills pressured him to consider retirement then.
While on leave, he helped a friend’s daughter deal with a criminal charge against her and get her in drug treatment. Caster alleges that the sheriff’s office used that as a pretext to get rid of him. He was accused of “associating with a criminal element, prevarication, and tampering with physical evidence,” according to the suit.
He said he was told an internal investigation would be dropped if he retired. When he refused because he didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong, he was terminated.
Sharp was elected to his first four-year term in 2008 and twice re-elected. He resigned mid-way through his third term after it was disclosed he had an ongoing romantic, sexual and financial relationship with a female employee of the sheriff’s office while she had a pending lawsuit against Jackson County for harassment.
While he was sheriff, the county paid out more than $500,000 in settlements and legal fees after women complained of sexual harassment at the department.
His successor, Darryl Forté, promised reforms, but alleged discriminatory practices within the sheriff’s office continue to cost the county. Recently, the legislature agreed to spend $405,000 to settle two sexual discrimination lawsuits filed by female employees of the county detention center. They alleged that they were sent home from work when their underwire bras set off the metal detectors they passed through each work day.
The women said that Forté should have made accommodations for them to have a secondary screening process as the metal in their bras were not a security threat.
