Mocksville police officers fired in 2011 still suffer from depression, psychologist says in federal trial

Three Mocksvillle police officers who claim they were fired for reporting allegations of misconduct to state officials still suffer from depression nearly five years after they lost their jobs, a psychologist testified Monday in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem.

Then-Mocksville Police Chief Robert Cook fired the officers - Maj. Ken Hunter, Lt. Rick Donathan and Detective Jerry Medlin - on Dec. 29, 2011. The officers first called the N.C. Attorney General's Office and then the N.C. Office of the Governor on Dec. 14, 2011. The three officers allege in a federal lawsuit that Cook and Town Manager Christine Bralley fired them in retaliation for contacting state officials and trying to get an independent investigation into alleged corruption inside the department. The lawsuit names Cook, Bralley and the town of Mocksville as defendants.

Cook and Bralley deny the allegations and have said the officers were fired for poor job performance. They said they didn't know the officers called the governor's office, which plaintiffs dispute.

Faye Sultan, director of University Psychological Associates in Charlotte, said Monday that she evaluated all three officers in June 2015 and then again about two months ago. All three officers have some sort of depression, Sultan said.

Medlin and Donathan have severe depressive and anxiety disorders, she said.

Hunter, who served with the Mocksville Police Department for about 27 years and was assistant chief, had more resilience but the termination still affected him, Sultan said. He lost his relationship with his longtime girlfriend, was homeless for a period of time and had to stay at a hotel while trying to figure out how to take care of his young son, she said.

Medlin felt a sense of shame and embarrassment after losing his job, Sultan said. His depression was exacerbated by the fact that he could not get another job in law enforcement, no matter how many applications he sent out, she said.

And Donathan has only gotten worse in the years since he lost his job, Sultan said. He has developed diabetes, she said. Donathan, who was named twice as Officer of the Year when he was at the police department, has found it hard to concentrate on the computer programming classes he is taking and can't see himself in any other role than as a police officer, she said.

Medlin has sought mental-health counseling but the other two haven't, she said. Donathan fears that he will have a harder time getting a job as a police officer if he did seek therapy, Sultan said.

Through cross-examination, Patrick Flanagan, one of the attorneys for the defendants, argued that Sultan couldn't directly connect the officers' firing with the psychological issues the men are dealing with now. And, he said, many of the symptoms the men had - insomnia, for example - are things that many people deal with.

Sultan said she based her conclusions not only on her evaluations of the men but her other interviews with people who knew them before and after they were fired. The men's psychological problems stem, she said, from the sense that they tried to do the right thing and got punished for it.

Sultan was the last witness for the plaintiffs, who began putting on evidence last Monday, including testimony from all three former officers and Cook.

Defendants called Bralley as their first witness.

Bralley, who has been town manager since 2002, said she never knew Cook to drink excessively and never heard of anyone in town making that claim, except Medlin in a letter he wrote to Bralley on June 29, 2009. The plaintiffs had accused Cook of being intoxicated while on-duty, mismanaging the police department's money and ignoring misconduct among his officers.

Bralley said she met with Medlin after he sent her the letter and that she investigated all of his complaints. She said she didn't find any evidence that Cook bought a 12-pack of beer on a daily basis while on-duty from a local convenience store. The store manager denied the allegation as did Cook, she said.

She said that Cook had planned to fire a number of officers that Medlin had accused of misconduct in his letter but many of them resigned before that could happen. Cook testified last week that Hunter, Donathan and Medlin were the only officers he fired during his eight years as police chief.

Testimony will continue today. The jury could start deliberations as early as Wednesday.

mhewlett@wsjournal.com (336) 727-7326 @mhewlettWSJ