Are the rules the same for all employees of Iredell County Sheriff Phil Redmond?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the answer to that question is no.
Deputy Ben Jenkins, as of this week, is still actively employed by the Iredell County Sheriff's Office, despite being sued on March 21 by a Kannapolis woman for sexual harassment and stalking.
Suzanne Wick, who had turned to the sheriff's office for help and protection against a physically abusive husband, states in her lawsuit that Jenkins – a detective in the sheriff's Domestic Violence Unit at that time – sexually harassed her, stalked her and threatened to drop charges against her abusive husband if she did not respond to Jenkins' sexual advances. Read the entire story here.
But in 2010, the sheriff fired and charged one of his own deputies the very night the deputy's girlfriend accused him of abusing her while he was off-duty at home. The deputy, Dennis Huffstickler, was later cleared by the courts of any wrongdoing.
Huffstickler said the top brass at the sheriff's office indicated he was being fired because the incident took place during an election year, in 2010. Not only did Huffstickler lose his job, he spent 48 hours in an isolation jail cell in another county. He also lost his law enforcement certification when the sheriff decided not to hold it for him – even after he was found not-guilty – which means he cannot practice law enforcement until he completes Basic Law Enforcement Training again.
Huffstickler said he would find out, by the time the 2010 election was over, just how political his firing really was.
It was Jan. 16, 2010 – just a few months shy of the primary to elect the Republican candidate for Iredell County's sheriff. Phil Redmond was running for his fourth term.
In a handwritten statement provided to the Report, Huffstickler said he and his girlfriend were arguing at his home, and he was trying to remove their son from the volatile situation. “She had been drinking,” Huffstickler recalled. “We were going to go away until she was sober.”
But when he took their son to the car, Huffstickler said his girlfriend hit him on the head with a video camera, took their son out of his car seat and locked herself in the bathroom at Huffstickler's home. He said at that point, his girlfriend called 911 and started kicking the door to make noise. “I heard her tell the operator she needed help,” Huffstickler said. “She told them I was trying to kill her and her baby.”
After an argument earlier that month, Huffstickler said he approached a lieutenant at the sheriff's office and confided in him about the situation: “I wanted to have (my girlfriend) removed from my home without getting law enforcement involved,” Huffstickler said. “I did not want to do anything to embarrass the sheriff's office.”
Huffstickler called that lieutenant while his girlfriend was on the phone with 911. “He told me to go outside and wait for the sheriff's office,” Huffstickler recalled. “I went outside and waited. I never put a hand on her.”
Huffstickler said that Deputy Gene Hayes, Lt. Mike Bova and Sgt. Atley Brown arrived at his home. “There may have been others,” he said. “Bova told my mother that nobody was going to be arrested that night.”
Huffstickler said Bova told him that “all of us were going to the sheriff's office and we were going to talk with Chief (Rick) Dowdle and Capt. Harold Miller.”
He said neither he nor his girlfriend were handcuffed while they were transported to the sheriff's office in separate cars. Huffstickler said he rode in the front passenger's seat of Sgt. Brown's vehicle.
“When we got to the sheriff's office, we were placed in interview rooms alone,” Huffstickler recalled. He said he completed a statement and gave it to Hayes.
Huffstickler said that about 45 minutes later, Deputy Hayes informed him that his girlfriend had been charged after blowing a .16 on an intoxilyzer test.
“Gene Hayes walked me over to Capt. Miller's office,” Huffstickler recalled. “When I walked in the room, Capt. Miller said, 'I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Your services are no longer needed at the sheriff's office.” Huffstickler said at least two other sheriff's office employees were present in the room.
Huffstickler said he asked Miller if he was interested in his side of the story. “Capt. Miller said, 'I will put it to you like this: it is an election year,'” Huffstickler recalled.
Miller retired from the sheriff's office just two weeks ago.
After Miller told Huffstickler he was fired, he also informed him that he was being charged. “Capt. Miller told me I was being escorted to Davie County Correction Center and that I was being charged with assault on a female,” Huffstickler said.
“I thanked Capt. Miller for the opportunity to work there. I kept thinking to myself that they would find out the truth. I thought I would be back at work when they did.
“I went to Davie County and was placed in an isolation cell,” Huffstickler said. “I was there 48 hours.”
He said Iredell County Lt. Guy Jenkins picked him up from Davie County and transported him back to the magistrate's office in Statesville.
Huffstickler later obtained a protective order against his girlfriend.
“I called the sheriff's office numerous times,” he said. During one of those calls, he said he told Capt. Darren Campbell to interview his girlfriend and that she would confess that Huffstickler did not assault her.
“Nobody ever did anything,” Huffstickler said.
Still, the State Bureau of Investigation was called in: “I was contacted by an agent named Renee,” Huffstickler said. “She asked if I would agree to an interview. I told her yes. Renee and another agent met me at my house, and I completed a one-hour interview with them.
“Several months later, my case went to court in front of Judge Debra Brown,” Huffstickler recalled. “The court found me to be not guilty.”
Feeling that he had been betrayed by the Iredell County Sheriff's Office, Huffstickler said he had no interest in working for Redmond again. However, he hoped the sheriff would agree to hold his certification so he could find a job in law enforcement somewhere else.
For law-enforcement officers to be hired, their certification must be held by an approved agency. If within one year the officers do not find an agency willing to hold their certifications, they have to start over with Basic Law Enforcement Training if they decide to enter the law-enforcement profession again.
Shortly after Huffstickler was cleared by the court, the former deputy ran into the sheriff at a grocery store. “He was at Food Lion on Wilkesboro Highway,” Huffstickler recalled. “I asked the sheriff if he would be willing to hold my certification since I was found not guilty.
“He said yes and told me to contact Capt. Marty Byers.” Byers, at that time, supervised personnel at the sheriff's office.
By this time, Redmond had won the county's Republican primary and was facing a Democratic challenger in the November 2010 general election.
Huffstickler said before he was able to reach Byers – and a couple days after the grocery-store encounter with Redmond – Capt. Darren Campbell and Lt. Andy Poteat visited him at his home. “It was about 4 or 5 p.m.; they were riding in a pick-up truck,” Huffstickler recalled. “Darren told me the sheriff had said what a good officer I was and how much they needed me. Darren asked me when I wanted to come back to work.
“I told him I could not work for a man that treated me the way (Redmond) did,” Huffstickler recalled.
“Darren said there was nothing they could have done because the SBI had gotten involved.”
Huffstickler said he reiterated to Campbell that he had no interest in returning to the Iredell County Sheriff's Office. “I said I only wanted my certification held,” he recalled.
Huffstickler could not have anticipated what came next: “Darren asked if I wanted a 'Re-elect Phil Redmond' sign in my yard,” Huffstickler recalled. “He had a sign in his truck.”
Huffstickler declined: “I told him to hang on to the sign.”
It appears that decision sealed Huffstickler's fate: “When I finally spoke with Marty Byers, he told me Sheriff Redmond had told him he did not intend to hold my certification.”
Soon thereafter, a comment appeared in The Gatton Report, detailing Huffstickler's visit from Campbell and Poteat. “I was still wanting my certification held because it was about to run out, so I called Darren Campbell,” Huffstickler recalled in his statement provided to the Report. “Darren said he did not want to talk to me. He accused me of talking to Jaime Gatton. He asked me who I had talked to and told about the visit he made.
“I told him I had confided in a friend,” Huffstickler said. “He asked who it was, but I would not tell him.
“Darren said if I scratched his back, he would scratch mine. He said he would talk to the sheriff and told me to think about it,” Huffsticker said. “I never heard anything from him.
“My certification ran out on Jan. 16, 2011.”
Huffstickler said while the sheriff's office fought his unemployment-benefits claim, the Employment Security Commission sided with the fired deputy and awarded him unemployment benefits.
Campbell has not responded to a Report e-mail this week, asking to clarify his back-scratching statement and if his visit to Huffstickler's home with Redmond's campaign sign was a “quid pro quo.”
Redmond also did not respond to a Report e-mail, asking if he decided not to hold Huffstickler's certification as a result of Huffstickler refusing to support the sheriff's reelection bid by placing a campaign sign in his yard. The Report also asked the sheriff how he justifies retaining some accused employees but firing others. He did not respond.
The stories of Huffstickler and Jenkins are parallel in some ways and vastly different in others. Let's review:
Huffstickler was off-duty when his girlfriend accused him of assaulting her. Jenkins is being sued for sexually harassing a woman in his capacity as a detective with the Iredell County Sheriff's Office's Domestic Violence Unit.
The SBI was called in to investigate Huffstickler. To date, it appears no one has asked the SBI to investigate the potentially criminal allegations made in the lawsuit against Jenkins.
Huffstickler was cleared of wrongdoing by the courts after his girlfriend admitted she had made up the allegations against him. The jury is still out on Jenkins. Wick's attorney, Joshua Van Kampen of Charlotte, filed the lawsuit against Jenkins and Sheriff Phil Redmond – stating Redmond neglected to act on Wick's complaints of sexual harassment – on March 21. The sheriff's office has 30 days from the date of that filing to respond.
Huffstickler's incident took place during an election year. Jenkins was sued while Redmond still has two years left in his term.
Huffstickler lost his job immediately. The sheriff's office charged him with assault and took him to a Davie County jail cell where he was locked up for 48 hours in isolation. The sheriff also refused to hold Huffstickler's certification, even after the former deputy was proven innocent of the charges against him.
Jenkins, on the other hand, is still actively employed at the sheriff's office, and “nothing has been received in HR advising us he has been suspended,” Iredell County Human Resources Director Sandra Gregory said this week, responding to Report questions.
According to his public personnel information, Jenkins was demoted from detective to jailer shortly after Wick says she complained to the sheriff's office about Jenkins' misconduct in 2009. Interestingly, however, just eight days after Redmond secured his November 2010 re-election, he began promoting Jenkins, from jailer to deputy sheriff, then one year later, from deputy to detective. But after just two weeks back as a detective in November 2011, Jenkins was demoted once again to deputy sheriff.
So, what gives? Why are the “rules” bent for some and strictly enforced on others? And what exactly are the rules? Are the sheriff's standards determined by election cycles?
Why did the sheriff's office leave Huffstickler locked up in a jail cell for 48 hours but continued to pay Adams' public cell phone for four months after he was indicted and then suspended from the sheriff's office?
And perhaps most important: What kind of environment does Sheriff Phil Redmond's selective leniency create for the other deputies currently working for him? What kind of message does this send to them?
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