Newly demoted Woodstock Police Chief Joe Swanson wants to add Sgt. Chris O’Keeffe as a defendant in the $5 million civil lawsuit over his demotion filed against municipal manager Eric Duffy, the Village Trustees and others.
O’Keeffe, who has been acting police chief since last fall, is now named to be added to the claim for intentional interference with contractual relations, according to a new filing in Vermont Superior Court. If approved, he will join Duffy and the five Village Trustees — chair Seton McIlroy, vice chair Jeffrey Kahn, and members Brenda Blakeman, Frank Horneck and Lisa Lawlor facing that claim.
O’Keefe is proposed for that claim in part due to the response made by the village and the town of Woodstock last month to try to seek dismissal of the lawsuit, according to Attorney Linda Fraas, who represents Swanson.
The new claim is against Sgt. O’Keeffe in his individual capacity only, as he was not acting in his official capacity as a law enforcement officer and an agent for the village, Fraas said.
She wrote O’Keeffe took actions “based on his own personal bad faith, spite and malicious motives to remove Plaintiff from his Chief of Police position in violation of Plaintiff’s contract in order to obtain that job for himself.”
O’Keeffe told the Vermont Standard on Tuesday that he had not been served the amended lawsuit, which was filed May 29 at Vermont Superior Court in Woodstock.
The defendants had been asked to agree to the proposed amendment, but one of the village’s lawyers, John Klesch, declined.
Swanson also wants O’Keeffe added to a second claim for common law conspiracy.
Swanson, 44, filed an affidavit last Thursday, May 29, in support of his request for a preliminary injunction seeking to block the village from hiring a new police chief and a patrol sergeant.
He said if Woodstock is allowed to hire a new police chief, he will be out of the permanent job that he has spent his life achieving.
“There is no amount of money to repair that loss,” he said in his affidavit.
A video court hearing is planned on Monday afternoon for the preliminary injunction request by Swanson to block the appointment of a permanent police chief and patrol sergeant.
For more on this, please see our June 5 edition of the Vermont Standard.
