CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Horry County wants a judge to remove the county and the police department from a lawsuit filed against a former detective.
In court documents filed Friday, Horry County government officials argue neither they nor the Horry County Police Department should be listed as defendants in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Jane Doe 3. The unnamed plaintiff claims that she was the victim of “unwanted sexual advances” by former Horry County Detective Allen Large.
Jane Doe 3’s lawsuit says she came into contact with Large when he was assigned her domestic abuse case in January 2015. Large was to investigate Jane Doe 3’s claims that she was the victim of criminal domestic violence at the hands of her then third husband.
The woman claims that “throughout the winter of 2015, Large coerced [her] participation in nude, sexual-fetish ‘catfights.'”
The suit claims that Horry County and the police department, including high-ranking officials like former police chief Sandra Rhodes, Scott Rutherford, Thomas Delpercio, William Squires, and Dale Buchanan, knew of Large’s inappropriate behavior and did nothing to stop him.
In recently filed court documents, the county claims it shouldn’t be held responsible for Large’s alleged actions, because, according to Large, the nude catfights did not happen on the county’s clock. In his deposition, Large says his participation in watching and encouraging the nude fighting was “on [his] own time.”
“…you got police officers that drink too much. You got police officers that have affairs. You got police officers that do all kinds of things that may be swingers, you know, that had nothing to do with, with Horry County. I did it on my own time,” explains Large in his March 2016 deposition.
Because of this admittance from Large, the county’s latest claim is that the “only potentially viable claim for trial against these particular defendants is plaintiff’s purported claim for negligent hiring, training, and/or supervision,” the document reads.
The paperwork goes on to say that even though the only viable claim would be for Jane Doe 3 to argue the county, to include the police department, did not offer adequate training or supervision of Large, even those claims aren’t supported with substantial proof, and “such claims should be dismissed.”
An Horry County Grand Jury indicted Large in September 2016 on six counts of misconduct in office and five counts of criminal sexual conduct third degree. The indictments allege that Large knowingly used coercion to engage in sexual battery with multiple victims and knowingly engaged in inappropriate relationships with victims of cases he was investigating.
The court date for Large, originally set for Sept. 18, has been moved, but no exact date has been given by the SC Attorney General’s Office.
The court documents were submitted by Samuel F. Arthur III out of Florence. An estimated time of when a judge may decide on the county’s request to be excluded from the list of defendants in the Jane Doe 3 lawsuit is not known.
