Court employee is suing over bumping controversy
A Summit County court employee who was accused of pushing an assistant prosecutor in a courthouse hallway last fall has filed a lawsuit against the former prosecutor — who resigned following the incident — and the prosecutor’s office.
Holly Trivett Fisher is suing Kassim Ahmed and the Summit County prosecutor’s office for slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium. She filed the suit Tuesday in Summit County Common Pleas Court.
As reported first in the Beacon Journal, Ahmed filed a report with the Summit County Sheriff ’s Office and wrote a letter to court officials about what he called an “unprovoked physical assault” by Fisher on Oct. 10 at the Summit County Courthouse. Investigations by the sheriff ’s office and the court deemed his complaint to be unsubstantiated and found that Fisher had merely bumped Ahmed.
Susan Sweeney, the court’s assistant executive officer, wrote a letter that questioned discrepancies between Ahmed’s letter and what a surveillance video showed. She said the court was “troubled and concerned about these inaccurate statements by an officer of the court against another court employee.”
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh and Brad Gessner, Walsh’s chief counsel, defended Ahmed, with Walsh saying the surveillance video was misleading. Ahmed signed a form not to prosecute and resigned Nov. 27, blaming the media and “hurtful comments” on articles. He said he thought it was in the best interest of his family and the prosecutor’s office for him to step down.
The lawsuit says Ahmed’s “use of his power as a prosecutor to harm another person is outrageous.”
“Fisher’s mental anguish caused by fear of losing her livelihood, and being exposed to public ridicule is so serious that no reasonable person should ever be subjected to it because of an innocuous incident,” the lawsuit says. “Ahmed’s actions were malicious, in bad faith and reckless.”
Fisher is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The amount isn’t specified, except to say it would be in excess of $25,000.
Gessner said the incident happened nine months ago and Ahmed resigned shortly after.
“We are surprised Ms. Fisher and her husband are now suing for monetary damages,” Gessner said in an emailed statement.
Ahmed couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
Warner Mendenhall, Fisher’s attorney, said Fisher filed the lawsuit because of the lack of an apology from Ahmed or the prosecutor’s office.
“We gave them a lot of opportunities to apologize, to clear this up and tell the public that their employee lied about the incident and that was unacceptable behavior,” he said. “They really haven’t done that. That would have helped go a long way to avoiding a lawsuit. But, at this point, there’s been a lot of damage done.”
Mendenhall said Fisher thinks if there hadn’t been a video she likely would have been indicted and faced with the loss of her job. He said she is concerned this could happen to someone else.
“How widespread is that attitude at the prosecutor’s office?” he asked. “Clearly, they were not listening to the other side. She would have been in a horrible situation.”
The case has been assigned to Judge Jill Flagg Lanzinger.