Somerset deputy fired after complaint

Officer claims he was ordered to alter, omit info in arrest report

James "Troy" Durham was nervous when he heard that Worcester County sheriff's deputies were knocking on his door Friday afternoon

It wasn't so long ago that the 41-year-old former Somerset County Sheriff's deputy was in the law enforcement brotherhood.

But he was kicked out of the family after working more than two decades as an officer when Somerset Sheriff Bobby Jones terminated him last week. Durham had been placed on administrative leave in September 2008, where he remained and continued to be paid by the county for a year.

"It was an effort to intimidate me and keep me quiet," Durham said of the visit from the Worcester officers. "I am in fear of my well-being."

Durham says this all began with a single arrest report. He assisted the Maryland State Police during an arrest. Per normal routine, he filed a report shortly after. Durham says he was asked to change his report and omit certain pieces of information. When he refused, he claims he was told to make the change or turn in his badge and gun.

He made the change.

But he kept the original report. And with it he filed a grievance.

That grievance, Durham maintains, is why he was placed on leave, why he was fired, why he became the target of an investigation and why he now fears for his safety.

For filing his grievance, Durham said, he found himself under investigation for "leaking internal documents."

His grievance has since become the foundation for a civil lawsuit against the Somerset County Sheriff's Office and Somerset County Commissioners.

It details the incident of the changed report and alleged misconduct within his former place of employment.

Errant faxes
According to Durham, the house call by Worcester deputies was triggered by faxes that contained court documents related to the lawsuit.

The six-page complaint, filed in April, alleges the commissioners and Sheriff's Office violated state laws, including the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights.

Why Durham's lawsuit was faxed to various law enforcement agencies is unclear and has sparked an investigation at the request of Wicomico County State's Attorney Davis Ruark.

The deputies were sent to check on Durham on Friday simply to make sure he was OK, according to Sgt. Ed Schreier, a spokesman for the Worcester County Sheriff's Office.



"The officers were sent there because a lot of faxes were being sent out," he said. "They went down there to check his status."

Schreier later changed his story, saying he didn't know the exact reason the deputies were checking on Durham and he could not confirm the dispatch was directly related to the faxes.

Copies of documents related to the lawsuit were sent by fax to law enforcement departments, public officials within the state and other agencies, according to Ruark.

The phone number at the top of the fax, which indicates the number the document was sent from, is a number associated with the Wicomico County State's Attorney's Office. But Ruark said the documents were not sent from his office.

"The fraudulent originating fax number at the top is inexcusable and was done with an intention to mislead those receiving the faxes," Ruark said.

The State's Attorney's Office was bombarded with phone calls and complaints after the first round of faxes were sent out about six months ago, according to Ruark. And as a result, the office took extra security precautions and changed the locks on its office doors. However, more documents were sent out this week, again claiming to have originated from the Wicomico County State's Attorney's Office.

Memos to other government agencies were also distributed to inform them that the faxed lawsuit documents were not from the Wicomico state's attorney.

Now, the legal documents that allege misconduct and violations by the Somerset County Sheriff's Office and Somerset County Commissioners have passed through many hands across the state, and Durham says he still wonders how he became the subject of an investigation and ultimately lost his career.

According to Durham, the threads of his 20-year law enforcement career started to unravel when he filed that grievance in September 2008.

sboykin@dmg.gannett.com

VIA delmarvanow.com