Orange County Sheriff's deputy sues DuBois, claiming political payback cost him promotions

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Orange County Sheriff's deputy sues DuBois, claiming political payback cost him promotions

Times Herald-Record

February 26, 2008

GOSHEN — An Orange County sheriff's deputy is suing Sheriff Carl DuBois, accusing DuBois of carrying out a political vendetta that cost the deputy promotions.

Deputy Skeet Dunn filed the suit yesterday in U.S. District Court in White Plains, three months after an impartial arbitrator dismissed departmental disciplinary charges that had been pending against Dunn since 2004.

The suit accuses DuBois of violating Dunn's civil rights as payback for the political activities of Dunn's mother, Barbara. She worked on the 2006 election campaign of Tom Carton, who was DuBois' opponent in a Republican primary.

The four-page suit claims that "...DuBois explicitly told plaintiff (Dunn) that he was a political problem for him and that's how he would have to handle him."

DuBois has consistently denied that politics played a role when Dunn was charged with four violations of departmental rules in 2004, for his role in breaking up a barroom brawl in Woodbury while he was off-duty. After hearing arguments from the county's lawyer and Dunn's lawyer, and reviewing the evidence, Arbitrator Peter Prosper dismissed the charges on Nov. 2. He found that the charges were unsupported by any evidence.

The suit claims that Dunn has been passed over for promotions at least seven times, frequently by less-qualified colleagues. He's been a deputy since 1994.

DuBois said he hadn't been served with the suit as of today. After reviewing a copy provided by a reporter, DuBois dismissed the suit as an example of lingering resentment from his 2002 defeat of the previous sheriff, H. Frank Bigger.

"Certain people here were cultivated under the Bigger administration" he said today, "and when I took over, that stopped."

Dunn is seeking unspecified damages.