In Nov. 6-12 Issue
By Greg Wells
Times Journal Managing Editor

Two civil lawsuits were filed last Friday against James S. Faller II and Leon Grider. Both of the men have been and are involved in lawsuits against those who have now sued them.

In one suit Faller and Grider were sued by nearly all of those that they had previously named in a suit in Federal Court at Bowling Green. The new suit alleges what has traditionally been termed malicious prosecution.

In simple terms, Mayor Hollis DeHart explained that the new suit alledges that the suit Faller and Grider had filed was simply an attempt to harass and cast dispersions on officials who were either involved in criminal cases against the two men or the officials who had refused to impede those investigations.

The case brought in Jamestown is a liable case in response to a letter sent out by Faller, with the alleged involvement of Grider, that made accusations against police and other officials.

The attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas Carroll of Wayne County, said Faller and Grider had filed a frivolous lawsuit against his clients and had liabled them with the letter sent out before a grand jury hearing. He said that letter contained scurrilous lies and baseless fabrications that were intended to injure their standing in the community.

For his part James S. Faller II said he welcomed the suit and that it would allow him to prove his accusations.

"They are desperate," Faller said. "-You can't sue someone for suing you."

One of the plaintiffs, Larry Rogers who was prosecutor in both Faller's and Grider's criminal cases when he was serving as commonwealth's attorney, was very straight forward about the new suits.

"There was a large sum of money that came out of the taxpayers' pockets to defend against the lawsuits brought by these men," Rogers said referring to Faller and Grider.

Rectifying that was part of the reason behind the suits, Rogers explained. But in a large part it is to extract compensation not only for all of the lawyers' fees paid to defend against the suit which he said they lost. He said the baseless and demeaning charges made by Faller and Grider had to be answered.

The timing of the case was important Rogers said, explaining that they had wanted to wait until the criminal case against the men had been resolved but they had to move forward because of legal limits on the time a person can wait before filing suit.

Carroll added that the federal suit Faller and Grider pursued against his clients failed in that court and in the court of appeals and the time has run out for them to file any further appeals.

Rogers said Faller already has in excess of $4 million in civil judgments against him from other suits.

Faller said the figure is likely closer to $6 million adding that those judgments were improperly awarded due to conspiratorial actions against him, and he repeated the statements that he has over the last several years; that he would be vindicated in the end as high officials are investigating his accusations and his felony conviction would be overturned or set aside and that others would soon be under investigation and in addition to that international media would soon be doing stories that expose the corruption in Russell County.