 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Suit against former sheriff thrown outBy TAMARA LUSH © St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001 A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a former Pasco Sheriff's Office detective against the agency and then-Sheriff Lee Cannon. Oonagh Guenkel, who was in charge of white-collar crime investigations, accused Cannon of forcing her out of the Sheriff's Office in 1995 because she represented a political threat to him. The suit said that Cannon used the power of his office to discredit Guenkel. Once Cannon discovered that she was interested in running for office, he ordered a review of the white-collar unit's work, the lawsuit said. The review found that there were flaws in dozens of cases, ranging from faulty record-keeping to evidence storage problems. Guenkel was demoted, and resigned after agency officials threatened her with internal affairs charges, she said in the suit. In 1996, she ran unsuccessfully for the office of sheriff. Two years later, after the agency wouldn't rehire her, Guenkel filed suit against Cannon and the agency. "She is a candidate who lost and tried to come back to work and when she wasn't allowed back to work, she tried to sue her way back into employment," said lawyer Leonard Dietzen, who represented Cannon and the Sheriff's Office in the suit. On March 30, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia dismissed the suit against Cannon, and on Friday, the U.S. District Court in Tampa closed the case because Guenkel failed to file a response to a motion. Guenkel represented herself in the lawsuit. Cannon's lawyers said he could not be sued individually for First Amendment violations, and the federal appeals court agreed. "Certainly, that's a reaffirmation of what I felt all along," Cannon told the Times on Monday. Guenkel, when reached for comment on Tuesday, vowed to appeal. She said she did not receive any letters or other communication from the courts. "It's a shame in our system that people are supposed to have the right to represent ourselves, and (the court) attempts to hold you to the same standard as an attorney," she said. "It's ridiculous." Guenkel, 45, recently received her teaching degree from the University of South Florida. She is unsure whether she would want to return to the Pasco Sheriff's Office. "I want someone or some (legal) body to take a stand and say that someone like the sheriff can not use the office as a political vehicle," she said. - Tamara Lush is the police reporter in Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6245.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From today's Pasco Times |
