Leonia Sanders, mother of 27-year-old Ronald Sanders, filed a complaint Feb. 13 with the U.S. District Court in Paducah, alleging conspiracy, both individually and collectively, among a host of area officials and mental health employees to violate the civil and constitutional rights of Ronald Sanders, for whom Leonia is also legal guardian, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit lists 14 defendants who were to be served, including the city of Pembroke and its Mayor Judy Peterson; former Pembroke Police Chief Mark Reid; two Christian County Sheriff's Office deputies Eddie Frye and Ricky Burgess; Pennyroyal Mental Health Center and employees Reba Pleasant and Janet Tolliver; four Western State Hospital employees Heather Holland, Lindee Monroe, Rebecca Perry and Susan Redmond-Vaught; and Christian County Attorney's Office staff Lincoln Foster and Maureen Leamy.
Phone calls and an email to the Pembroke City Hall, as well as a voicemail to Christian County Sheriff's Office were not returned. Western State Hospital, Pennyroyal Mental Health and Christian County Attorney's Office spokespersons declined to comment.
Sanders directed all questions to her lawyer, Louisville attorney Chris Hoerter, who said he believes there was wrongdoing and abuse of power in Sander's court and mental health proceedings.
"The objective of the conspiracy was simple," Hoerter said in a written statement to the New Era. "In spite of targeting Ronald and luring him into false arrests, the police and the Christian County prosecutors couldn't convict Ronald Sanders of a crime, because he is incompetent to stand trial, which they knew. And that frustrated them. Since they couldn't criminally confine him because of his intellectual disability, they abused a civil proceeding -- that they intentionally excluded Ronald and his mother from -- which resulted in his illegal placement as a ward of the state into the custody of the Cabinet (for Health and Family Services).
"It was audacious and cruel, and beyond doubt a violation of Ronald Sanders' civil rights," the attorney continued. "Each co-conspirator was instrumental in their own way in depriving Ronald of his rights as an American citizen. And we will prove that. While some of the players were more sophisticated than others in trying to conceal their conduct, no person is above the law."
How did this begin
In July 26, 2017, Ronald Sanders, 25 at the time, was arrested on charges of public intoxication.
According to The Eagle Post archives, Sanders was visiting a friend at a home on North Main Street in Pembroke when sheriff's deputies showed up to give him a sobriety test. The deputies told the homeowner they had received a call of a man trespassing at Bluegrass Apartments.
On a copy of the 9-1-1 call, the chief identifies himself as "Reid" then tells dispatch he received a call about a black male wandering around the apartments with a boom box on his shoulder and a brown paper bag.
"He's usually doesn't cause much trouble," the chief said on the call. "He just sings and wanders around, but she said he's been drinking today."
Reid then identifies Ronald Sanders and said they would probably find him wandering in the area. Deputies found him at his friend's house.
According to the sheriff's report, Ronald Sanders blew 0.04 on the preliminary breath test and was arrested. He was held overnight and released to his mother the next day.
Leonia Sanders believed his arrest was unlawful and filed a complaint against the Christian County Sheriff's Office.
What happened next
On Oct. 23, 2017, Ronald Sanders was charged with third-degree criminal trespassing. According to a memo in that court file, Chief Reid, the complaining witness, states Ronald was seen trespassing at a woman's house on Rosetown Road.
"Subject has been warned, by me, against trespass on this property," the memo reads. "Victim called this a.m. to advise the suspect was knocking on her front window wanting in. She did not respond, she just called the police."
Leonia said the woman had been picking Ronald up occasionally and bringing him to her home, but Leonia asked her to leave Ronald alone, sensing their relationship was inappropriate. Leonia said she told Reid how she felt about it.
"Chief Reid told her to stay off my property and told Ronald to stay off of her property," Leonia told the New Era last year. "But you're talking to someone with a 51 IQ, he doesn't understand."
Ronald was arrested a third time Feb. 13, 2018, at what he and his mother thought would be a comprehensive evaluation with his Pennyroyal Mental Health case worker. Instead, sheriff's deputies arrived to serve a judge's order to take Ronald to an institution in Madisonville because of a missed court date.
Ronald ran from deputies into traffic on Fort Campbell Boulevard and was arrested. Video of the encounter showed Leonia Sanders hysterically screaming and asking why he was being taken away.
According to his court file, a letter from the courts returned undelivered; however, the address it was sent to differed from the correct address his other court documents were sent to. Leonia believes it was sent to the wrong address on purpose.
"I've never missed a court date," she said in 2018. "Anyone will tell you, I'm always on top of things when it comes to my son. I had been getting everything else, so they knew our address."
Court date after court date
Following Ronald Sander's arrest, he was admitted to Western State Hospital for a mental health evaluation and then placed in a home in Madisonville.
All of his criminal charges from July 2017 to February 2018 were dismissed in March 2018 with probable cause, on the suggestion of assistant county attorney at the time Lindsey Adams.
Adams suggested the court drop the charges after the judge-ordered psychiatric examination, stating that their priority became getting Sanders "the help that he needs."
A competency and guardianship hearing was set for a few days later; however, the court proceeding was delayed several times and moved to Madisonville where Ronald Sanders was living at the time.
Prior to the April 2018 hearing, Ronald said "I just want to go home" multiple times before being told he couldn't talk to the media by his state-appointed guardians.
Surrounded by a host of civil rights activists, Leonia Sanders was at the Madisonville hearing pleading to Hopkins District Judge David Massamore to allow her son to come home.
The case was delayed once again when the judge scolded state case workers for doing "sloppy work" because an interdisciplinary mental health evaluation was incomplete in Ronald Sanders' file.
"The report in the record was a medical report, but it had no name on it and there was no way to confirm it was a real person," the judge said in the April 2018 hearing. "I have no clue who filled out the report. It has to be authenticatable."
The judge tasked Rebecca Perry, supervisor for the Western branch of Guardianship Field Services, with getting the correct medical report.
Leonia Sanders also told the judge she had filed a complaint against Reba Pleasant, crisis coordinator for the Pennyroyal Center whom she believed Ronald was staying with in Madisonville. Allegedly, Ronald told his mother the coordinator kissed him, but those claims were never substantiated.
When called about the lawsuit Monday, Pleasant personally declined to comment.
Ronald returns home
In a closed proceeding under KRS 387.770, a jury decided unanimously in May 2018 that Ronald is wholly disabled with regard to his financial affairs and partially disabled in his personal affairs.
Later that month, Leonia Sanders and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services had to prove who would be the better guardian for Ronald.
The judge decided May 29, 2018, that Ronald Sanders could go home to his mother. Judge Massamore advised Leonia Sanders to work closely with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
"We have a safety net in place. Use it," said Massamore in 2018, urging that Leonia Sanders not "make them the enemy."
Filing a lawsuit
Hoerter, a criminal defense attorney in Louisville, said he's never seen a case like this, but he believes it was "hi-tech kidnapping."
"Ronald and his mother were excluded by design from the guardianship hearing that stripped him of his civil rights," the attorney said. "Every American has a constitutional right to a hearing when the government wants to deprive them of life or liberty. That didn't happen here. Even though the guardianship was illegal because of the constitutional violation, for months afterward, the Cabinet and Pennyroyal fought tooth and nail against Leonia from even visiting her son."
The lawsuit complaint alleges, "the defendants did not want him in their community, but they could not criminally confine him, so they conspired to abuse a civil proceeding in order to put Ronald Sanders into custody."
"The defendants' conduct violated the Plaintiffs' constitutional rights to due process and to be free from excessive force and unreasonable seizures, and as a direct and proximate result of the defendants' conduct, the Plaintiffs suffered physical injury, extreme emotional distress, and mental anguish, for which they seek to recover actual, compensatory, and punitive damages."
Hoerter said he decided to represent the Sanders because of "Leonia's courage, and her unwavering dedication to her son," and he looks forward to presenting before a judge.
Currently, motions for default against the Cabinet defendants are pending.
Full Article & Source:
Pembroke mom sues 14 officials on behalf of son with special needs
I pray for her success.
ReplyDeleteI have had dealings with Ronald Sanders and his mother. Ronald is a danger. I was on the other side of my door holding a large kitchen knife in one hand a hammer in the other hand and police telling me there was nothing they could do until he came through that door. He was threatening to kick it down. Another person ( a nurse) who lived near him moved after he kicked her door down and nothing ever happens to him. His mother blatently tells you he can not be criminally held responsible in Ky. or Tn. as he was found not able to be responsible for his actions years ago. She lets him run the streets (even late at night) terrorizing orhers. Law enforcement has their hands tied. I pray she does not win and someday someone protects the citizens from him!!!!! He needs help in a more monitored stable environment!
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