Sexual assault victim sues town, former officers, council members for $30+ million
By STEPHANIE PORTER-NICHOLS
Published: June 10, 2008
By DAN KEGLEY/Staff
Sarah Coalson filed a $30.35 million lawsuit Friday against current and former town of Chilhowie officials, seeking damages related to her sexual assault at a 2006 Halloween haunted house for which two former town police officers are now serving prison sentences.

The suit, filed in Smyth County Circuit Court, names as defendants the town of Chilhowie, former police chief Dwayne Sheffield, former police officer Brian Doss, Mayor Gary Heninger, and former town manager William Rush. It also names current council members James B. Bonham III, J. Brent Foster, Jeff Mash, Lewis Shortt and Brady Skeen. Also named is former council member Heather Rouse Luttrell. The suit, filed by Coalson, now 18, through attorney David Childers of Abingdon, stipulates that the former town employees and council members were in those positions in October 2006 when the police department “sponsored, organized, supervised and operated a Halloween haunted house.”

The civil action follows by several months the conclusion of criminal proceedings against Sheffield and Doss. Early last November in Smyth County, Sheffield took an Alford plea to a charge of object sexual penetration in a deal to avoid prosecution on four other related charges that stemmed from a haunted house sponsored by the Chilhowie Police Department.

Under an Alford plea, a defendant maintains he is innocent while admitting the prosecution has evidence sufficient for a conviction. Judge William N. Alexander II sentenced Sheffield to 10 years’ imprisonment with six years and 10 months suspended. That left three years and two months with credit for time served since his arrest in May 2007, including house arrest.

After his sentence is complete, Sheffield is also to have no contact with the victim or her family and is required to register as a sex offender. The plea allowed Sheffield to avoid prosecution on charges of rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, sexual battery and child endangerment. A month after Sheffield’s sentencing, Doss pled guilty to charges of felony child endangerment, amended during his trial to abuse and neglect of a child, and sexual battery, amended to assault and battery, according to court documents.

In the plea agreement, Judge William N. Alexander II dropped forcible sodomy and sodomy charges, court papers showed. Alexander sentenced Doss to three years in the penitentiary, but suspended two years and three months, for the abuse and neglect charge, and 12 months for the assault and battery with nine months suspended, the documents said.

Doss will spend 12 months incarcerated with credit – 96 days—for time served, including house arrest. Three years of active probation follow the incarceration, and Doss is to have no contact with the victim or her family. The 42-page lawsuit document said “on or about the night of October 30, 2006, Coalson, in performing her duties as a volunteer” at the haunted house, “was helping Doss and Sheffield clean up, shut off the lights and close down the haunted house after all the others had left.” “After finding the front entrance to the building locked and the lights shut off,” the suit said, “Doss, Sheffield and Coalson began to walk through the building’s main hallway toward the back of the building to leave through the back exit, which they believed was still open.”

“As they walked toward the back exit, Sheffield left Doss and Coalson alone to, presumably, shut off the building’s electric generator. Doss began to kiss and fondle Coalson as they stood in the main hallway of the building.” Doss and Sheffield were each “clothed in his Town of Chilhowie Police Department uniform, displaying his badge of authority, with his police-issued sidearm on his hip,” the suit said. “Shortly after Doss began kissing and fondling Coalson, Sheffield returned and began kissing and fondling Coalson, against her will,” the document said. “Sheffield then directed Doss to move Coalson into a more private room directly off from the main hallway, referred to as the “Pig’s Head Room” by the operators and volunteers at the haunted house. “Coalson, because she feared for her life and because she was extremely intimidated by Sheffield and Doss, did not protest, nor did she agree to go with the two officers into the ‘private’ room. Coalson was led into the room by her hand by the two officers.”

The suit said Doss and Sheffield “held Coalson upright and forcibly assaulted, raped and sodomized Coalson, against her will and without her consent. As the officers were vaginally and anally assaulting Coalson, she desperately wanted the men to stop, but was afraid they would become abusive and violent if she struggled against them.” The suit said Sheffield made “several attempts” to fabricate a story to relieve himself and Doss of culpability for the sexual assault, rape and sodomy of Coalson….”

The suit said Coalson “was physically injured, terrorized, shocked, emotionally distraught and overwhelmed with feelings of embarrassment and sadness. Coalson was also extremely fearful of having contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Shortly after being sexually assaulted Coalson wrote in her diary that the officers had ‘stolen her innocence, she became depressed and often wept uncontrollably at the memory of having been brutally raped and sodomized by Sheffield and Doss.’”

“Coalson had never engaged in sexual intercourse prior to being raped and sodomized by Sheffield and Doss,” the suit said. The suit seeks $5 million from Sheffield and the town, and the same from Doss and the town, on a count of sexual assault and battery, $4 million from each man and the town on a count of intentional infliction of emotional distress, and $1 million from each and the town on a false imprisonment account.

The suit seeks $500,000 from Heninger, Rush and each of the named council members, representing $250,000 for each count of negligent hiring and retention of Sheffield and of Doss. An additional $6 million is sought from Sheffield on a count of negligent hiring and retention of Doss. The suit seeks $350,000 in punitive damages, the statutory maximum, attorney Childers said.

“Coalson and her family have also been required to expend large sums of money for medical and psychiatric care and Coalson and her family will be required to do the same in the future,” the lawsuit said. Childers declined Tuesday to discuss the lawsuit. “It’s best for me to have no comment,” he said. “I really don’t want to comment on anything or answer any question that deals with any sort of the facts in the case.” Chilhowie Town Attorney Danny Lowe also declined to respond to the suit.

The mayor likewise declined to comment. “Anybody can sue anybody for anything, you know,” Heninger said. “We’ll wait and see what happens.” Lewis Short, a member of the town’s police committee, was unaware of the suit Tuesday.

Million Dollar Lawsuit
Former CPD chief responds to lawsuit
By STEPHANIE PORTER-NICHOLS
Published: June 25, 2008
By DAN KEGLEY/Staff
Former Chilhowie Police Chief Dwayne Sheffield has written a letter from prison asking a judge to appoint a guardian ad litem to represent him in a $30 million lawsuit against him and other current and former town of Chilhowie officials.

Sheffield also told Smyth County Circuit Court Judge Isaac Freeman he welcomes the civil action as “an opportunity for the factual truth…to come to light” in a case that sent him and another police officer to jail. He also alleges two conflicts of interest on the part of his prosecutor.

In his June 17 letter to Freeman, copied to the News & Messenger, Sheffield cited financial hardships resulting from his incarceration as motivating his request for legal representation. Sheffield is serving a prison sentence of three years and two months, with credit for time served after his arrest, on charges connected to a police department-sponsored charity haunted house in 2006 that also is at the center of the lawsuit. Judge William N. Alexander II sentenced Sheffield to 10 years’ imprisonment with six years and 10 months suspended, court papers showed.

Late last year Sheffield took an Alford plea to a charge of object sexual penetration in a deal to avoid prosecution on four related charges connected to the haunted house. The plea spared Sheffield prosecution on charges of rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and sexual battery and child endangerment, according to court documents.

The lawsuit, filed in Smyth County Circuit Court June 6 by Sarah Coalson, 18, identifies her as the victim of sexual assault at the haunted house when she was 17 by Sheffield and former Chilhowie police officer Brian Doss. It further names as co-defendants former and sitting members of the town’s council and a previous town manager. The suit seeks $5 million from Sheffield and the town, and the same from Doss and the town, on a count of sexual assault and battery, $4 million from each man and the town on a count of intentional infliction of emotional distress, and $1 million from each and the town on a false imprisonment count.

The suit seeks $500,000 from Mayor Gary Heninger, former Town Manager Bill Rush and each of the named current and former council members, representing $250,000 on each count of negligent hiring and retention of Sheffield and of Doss.

An additional $6 million is sought from Sheffield on a count of negligent hiring and retention of Doss. The suit seeks $350,000 in punitive damages, “I have no income and my family and children have been forced to accept governmental assistance in order to survive,“ Sheffield wrote from the Haynesville Correctional Center on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Sheffield told Freeman that under the Code of Virginia, during his incarceration he is “considered ‘disabled’ and eligible for representation by a court appointed attorney at the expense of the plaintiff….“ A guardian ad litem, or guardian of the suit, is an independent advisor to the court on matters pertaining to a lawsuit, rather than a legal advocate for the plaintiff or defendant. Guardians ad litem, the Code of Virginia said, “shall faithfully represent the estate or other interest of the person under a disability for whom he is appointed, and it shall be the duty of the court to see that the interest of such defendant is so represented and protected.“ Sheffield’s letter to Freeman opens with a denial of the lawsuit’s accusations Sheffield said were “ridiculous and fabricated” and “not only do I strongly deny the accusations, but find them very damaging. In fact, I successfully completed three polygraph examinations showing no deception, conducted by the Virginia State Police in Wytheville in November of 2006.“

A Virginia State Police spokesman said Monday the polygraph test results are exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act within the Code of Virginia. Sheffield in his letter alleges the attorney who prosecuted him had a conflict of interest generated by his and Sheffield’s service together on a charitable organization’s board of directors. Freeman appointed Wythe County Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Lee Harrell as special prosecutor in the case, excusing Smyth Commonwealth’s Attorney Roy Evans because of his work with local police including Sheffield. “During the investigation, the fact wasn’t made known that the prosecutor, Lee Harrel [sic] sat beside me as we were both members on the board of directors of the Family Resource Center,“ Sheffield wrote. “The family resource center profitted [sic] monetarily from the charity haunted house in which this investigation arose. Still, Mr. Harrel [sic] prosecuted the case.“

The Family Resource Center provides shelter and support services to victims of domestic and sexual violence in the Bland, Carroll, Galax, Grayson, Smyth and Wythe area, its Web site said. The Cancer Outreach Foundation was the other beneficiary of the haunted house revenues. The foundation assists cancer patients and their families in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, its Web site said. Harrell was unavailable for comment.

Sheffield also alleges Coalson’s attorney, David Childers of Abingdon, “recently defended Mr. Harrel [sic] against suit concerning another accusation that Mr. Harrel [sic] prosecuted,“ Sheffield wrote. “Is that in itself not another conflict?“

In fact, Harrell was a plaintiff, not a defendant in that civil suit. Childers represented Harrell in his July 2007 lawsuit against a Wytheville couple Harrell prosecuted the previous September in Wythe County General District Court. Harrell filed the suit against Michael and Linda Dix and the Wytheville convenience store they own in response to their claim on a Web site that Harrell lied in court. The Dixes, who sold a variety of smoking devices and legal herbs at their store, were convicted in General District Court in September 2006 on the charges of selling drug paraphernalia. They were fined $500 each and sentenced to two days in jail for the class 1 misdemeanor offense.

For the alleged damage to his professional reputation through defamation of character, Harrell, sought $100,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages, as well as court costs. Wythe County Circuit Court Judge Josiah T. Showalter Jr. accepted a motion last month filed by Childers to end Harrell’s suit against the couple. Childers cited an out of court settlement as resolving the matter. Tuesday afternoon, Childers responded to Sheffield’s allegation saying, “There is no conflict.“ Harrell also said he was aware of no conflict. Tuesday, he said, “I don’t view it as a conflict of interest, and I am not aware of any rule of ethic that would make it so.“ Harrell also noted that he had attended two Family Resource Center board meetings with Sheffield.

Sheffield also said a misunderstanding led to his entering the Alford plea, a legal maneuver allowing a defendant to maintain a claim of innocence while admitting the prosecution has evidence sufficient for a conviction. Sheffield further raises an objection to the handling of his Alford plea in his letter to the judge. Sheffield said he “only took that plea after having been threatened and misled by the prosecution. I, my children, and family now suffer daily as a result of my misinformed decision.“ That writing is followed by Sheffield’s saying he welcomes the lawsuit.

“I have repeatedly prayed for an opportunity to allow the factual truth of the encounter and the plea agreement to come to light in the court and throughout the public,“ he wrote. “I can’t help but believe that this civil action is the answer to my prayers and I so look forward to this trial and the events to come thereafter.“ In addition to Heninger, Rush, Sheffield and Doss, the suit names as defendants the town of Chilhowie and current council members James B. Bonham III, J. Brent Foster, Jeff Mash, Lewis Shortt and Brady Skeen. Also named is former council member Heather Rouse Luttrell.

The suit said that the former town employees and council members were in those positions in October, 2006 when the police department “sponsored, organized, supervised and operated a Halloween haunted house.“ The suit said “on or about the night of October 30, 2006, Coalson, in performing her duties as a volunteer” at the haunted house, “was helping Doss and Sheffield clean up, shut off the lights and close down the haunted house after all the others had left” when the sexual assault happened.

A hearing for the lawsuit has not been set. Since before legal action was pursued against him in 2007, Sheffield has insisted he was innocent of accusations concerning the haunted house swirling through Chilhowie that later were replaced by criminal charges. “In reference to the rumors,“ Sheffield said in May 2007, “I’d like it to be known that police offers are humans, too. None of are saints. We have families, bills and pay taxes just like everyone else. These accusations that have circulated are absolutely ridiculous.“

Before he was indicted in that same month, Sheffield said he would remain in the community. “You’ll see me in the grocery store. I have done nothing to be ashamed of.“ Sheffield had served in the Chilhowie Police Department for 18 years and said he was two years away from retirement eligibility. The Haynesville Correctional Center is an institution for males with security level of two where level six indicates maximum security, according to Virginia Department of Corrections. Brian Doss pled guilty to charges of felony child endangerment, amended during his trial to abuse and neglect of a child, and sexual battery, amended to assault and battery, according to court documents. In the plea agreement, Judge William N. Alexander II dropped forcible sodomy and sodomy charges, court papers showed.

Alexander sentenced Doss to three years in the penitentiary, but suspended two years and three months in the abuse and neglect charge, and 12 months in the assault and battery with nine months suspended, the documents said. Dan Kegley may be reached at dkegley@wythenews.com . Nate Hubbard contributed.

Virginia May Be For Lovers, But Not If The Girl Is Under Age- by E.T.
Halloween is a time for playful scares. Police are employed to serve and protect citizens. But when police "service" an underage female citizen, a crime occurs warranting a change into a uniform with stripes. Similarly, an extended trip to the other side of the steel bars is in order. Brian Doss (age 32) a former Chilhowie police sergeant was entrusted with serving and protecting the citizens. A little more than a year after wearing the uniform of a police officer he now has the status of inmate. Doss was sentenced to serve a year in jail after pleading guilty Thursday to crimes against a teenage girl. (Brian Doss had been charged with five crimes after he and former Chilhowie police Chief Dwayne Sheffield allegedly had sex with the 17-year-old at a 2006 Halloween haunted house fundraiser.) Doss had originally been charged with forcible sodomy, nonforcible sodomy, sexual battery, child endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In Smyth County Circuit Court, the sexual battery charge was amended to a charge of assault and battery. Doss pleaded guilty to the amended charge and the child endangerment charge. In exchange, the prosecutor dropped the sodomy charges and the contributing charge.

For assault and battery, Doss was sentenced to 12 months in jail with nine months suspended. For child endangerment, he was sentenced to three years with two years and three months suspended. Doss begins residing in Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon as of January 7th. After serving his time, he will be on probation for 3 years and will have no contact with the victim.

Doss's attorney, Jimmie Hess, apparently thought it was a good result. But Doss and Sheffield have always maintained that the sex was consensual. Nevertheless, Hess said Doss was "very remorseful" because of the girl's age. (Note in some states the age for consensual sex may be as young as 16.)

The other member of the misguided duo, Dwayne Sheffield is serving a little over three years after entering an Alford plea to a charge of "animate object sexual penetration." All other charges, including a rape charge, were dropped. (An Alford plea, allowed Sheffield to maintain his innocence while admitting there was enough evidence for a conviction.)

Who knows exactly how this frightful Halloween evolved into such a tragic career ending mishap for these two former officers. But one thing is certainly clear, these two men used incredibly bad judgment that has forever scarred their victim.