Former Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charles Bannister on Monday filed a federal lawsuit accusing Sheriff Butch Conway of having deputies falsely arrest Bannister on drunken-driving charges as part of a long-standing vendetta to remove him from office.
The DUI arrest was made "to embarrass and humiliate Bannister in retaliation for Bannister's articulated opposition to Conway's political aims," the lawsuit said. It said Bannister's inquiries into the work habits of Conway's wife, State Court Judge Carla Brown, and into Conway's handling of the sheriff's department prompted Conway "to use any means possible" to oust Bannister.
The suit accuses Conway and two deputies of false arrest, false imprisonment and retaliatory prosecution. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for "extreme humiliation, embarrassment and anguish which has continued to this day and is expected to continue into the future."
Conway said Monday that he stands by the apology he issued to Bannister after test results cleared him of the charges. "I was sincerely sorry it happened," Conway said. "I felt sorry for Charles and his family. It's something you never want to have happen to anyone. We did all we could as quickly as possible to mitigate it." Brown declined to comment.
"Unfortunately, the sheriff thinks you can use the unbridled power of the office for your own personal and political gain," Atlanta attorney David Walbert, one of Bannister's attorneys, said. "If the Constitution doesn't provide a remedy for this then we don't have a Constitution anymore."
Bannister was arrested on DUI charges in June 2010 after he left Cafe Hot Wing, a Lilburn-area restaurant. A witness called an off-duty sheriff's deputy to report Bannister was drinking and driving his county-issued car.
Although two breath tests showed Bannister had no alcohol in his system, deputies booked Bannister into the county jail, took his mug shot and then transported the shackled commission chair to Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville for blood tests. Those tests verified the earlier breath test results.
The lawsuit said that during Bannister's first term as commission chair, Conway developed "an intense hostility" toward Bannister. Conway was particularly upset at Bannister for questioning whether Brown was working as often as she should and for requesting Brown's access card records that showed when she entered and left the courthouse. Conway was also angered by Bannister's opposition to the magnitude of the sheriff's budget request and his belief Conway was improperly inflating the retirement pay of his employees, the lawsuit said.
One of the ways Conway hoped to politically embarrass Bannister was to arrest him on "trumped-up charges" during a time he went to Cafe Hot Wing, which Conway knew Bannister frequented, the lawsuit said. At Conway's direction, sheriff's employees let the restaurant know that when Bannister was there, the sheriff's office wanted to be alerted, the lawsuit said.
Bannister, who was elected into office in 2004 and reelected in 2008, abruptly resigned in Oct. 8, 2010, after appearing before a special grand jury investigating county land purchases. At the time, he said past events, including his arrest and exoneration of the DUI charge, "placed an undeserved strain on my family and has threatened my own health."
A grand jury report, unsealed weeks later, disclosed that the grand jury was prepared to indict Bannister on a perjury charge when he offered to step down, in effect giving up his office to avoid prosecution.
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