A former Mingo County deputy clerk claims Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury slandered her and had her fired. Candace Harper worked for Thornsbury and is also his niece.
Harper says that while employed at the Mingo County Circuit Clerk’s office and the Mingo County Magistrate Court, she learned that Thornsbury was having an affair with a woman from the Probation office, and also that he had affairs with multiple other women. Later, the woman began working for Thornsbury as his secretary. Harper says that when Thornsbury found out she knew about the affair, he began harassing her, both professionally and personally.
Harper says she was scrutinized whenever she took time off from work, and six different times, her original time sheets went missing from the office. Later, Harper says her supervisor, Terry Sanders, confided in Harper that she was being directed to doctor the timesheets in an effort to get Harper fired.
In August 2001, Harper says she was called to Mingo County Magistrate Eugene Crum’s office, where she was threatened with criminal prosecution if she didn’t leave her job. Thornsbury also claimed that Harper was using her work computer to view social media sites at work. Harper says she didn’t have any social media accounts with the companies that were listed in the audit of her work computer.
Then in May 2012, Harper was asked to leave the apartment she rented from Thornsbury because another landlord had bought the building. Her water was shut off the day she was asked to leave. Later, she learned that Thorsbury never sold the building.
After Thornsbury was indicted for using his position as judge to frame a romantic rival, the FBI began talking to harper to find out what she knew. That’s when she alleges that Thornsbury began spreading rumors that Harper was involved with an FBI agent.
Harper is seeking compensatory damages for economic losses, emotional distress, humiliation, disparagement and lost wages, as well as punitive damages for gross negligence.
If you have been the target of workplace harassment, discrimination or unfair termination, Bouchillon, Crossan & Colburn, L.C. represents clients in federal court and before the EEOC, MSPB and in state and union grievance hearings.
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