Attorneys for criminally indicted former Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy Daniel Wilkey have asked a federal judge to dismiss one of the 10 civil suits he faces because most of the alleged misconduct took place outside the one-year statute of limitations.
The 26-year-old former deputy was indicted in December on 44 criminal charges, including six counts of sexual battery, two counts of rape and nine counts of official oppression. Some of the criminal charges mirror allegations set forth in the civil cases, including the one he’s asked to be dismissed.
Attorney Robin Flores, who represents one of Wilkey’s alleged victims in a civil suit, has opposed the request, and compared Wilkey’s alleged abuse of power against his client to “a kid who just found his father’s gun.”
The Times Free Press is not identifying the accuser because of the nature of her encounters with Wilkey.
Wilkey is accused of stalking and sexually battering the woman over the course of at least a year, according to the criminal indictment. The woman was working at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Middle Valley when Wilkey began asking her personal questions about her love life, a civil suit states. He then searched her for possible drugs while allegedly groping her.
That kind of behavior is alleged to have continued as he made “frequent and numerous” traffic stops of the woman and conducted the same type of searches, the suit states. During at least one stop, Wilkey allegedly “berated [the woman] by telling her she needed to get saved, asked her why she was ‘hanging around with that guy,’ and told [her] she was going to Hell.”
Then, around March 2019, Wilkey and an unidentified deputy allegedly showed up at the woman’s former home and shined flashlights into her former bedroom because they claimed to have an arrest warrant. He then allegedly convinced the woman’s sister to call her so he could talk to her, and when the woman heard his voice on the phone, “she burst out in tears.”
Wilkey’s attorney, Jim Exum, argued the allegations are too vague and, with the exception of the March 2019 incident, most of the encounters are over a year old.
“Vagueness does a disservice to [Wilkey],” Exum wrote, because Wilkey can’t properly respond to the allegations without knowing more details, such as dates.
“It is reasonable to expect that if an event was so traumatic, one would remember a date or, if the events were numerous, would keep a running list of dates,” Exum argued. “It does not appear [the woman] did this as she only refers to numerous stops spaced out over several months.”
“Instead of complaining when an alleged incident happened, she waited until [Wilkey] became a media story,” he continued. ” – [She] simply accumulated a number of stops and waited until an opportune time to sue. Such is unfair to [Wilkey] and forces him to defend allegations with few specifics.”
In Flores’ response, he stated that Wilkey “terrorized [the woman]” to the point she was “fearful of stating anything to authorities.”
“What Wilkey fails to understand is many victims (and not just his) only come forward when the light of the media is brought to bear upon a wrongdoer,” Flores continued.
Flores also argued the older incidents can still be brought up because they show a continuous course of misconduct by Wilkey targeted at the woman.
Exum, however, disagrees. He claims that each and every incident Wilkey allegedly committed would constitute its own complaint, and therefore can’t be tied together. Furthermore, he argues, that the March 2019 incident – the one upon which the other allegations would be riding – doesn’t rise to the legal standard for a claim because the woman wasn’t even at the home when Wilkey allegedly searched for her.
“[The woman] has alleged nothing of such an outrageous nature that would cause an injury,” Exum wrote. “At best, she spoke on the phone to someone and that elicited an unusual response.”
Flores, though, responded, “It’s hard to imagine how Wilkey’s mind-boggling and long-term misconduct can be seen as anything else than outrageous.”
“Wilkey discounts the impact of his deplorable conduct upon [the woman] by poo-pooing her response [bursting into tears] to actually having to speak with him after the months-long abuse she endured at his hands,” he wrote. “That same abuse of his power had the impact of – [causing the woman] to remain silent. She now has come forward only after Wilkey’s crimes came to light, and as most victims of sexual abuse do, felt empowered to speak out.”
A judge ultimately will have to decide whether to grant Wilkey’s request to dismiss the suit.
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