Civil suit

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

TIMOTHY M. THOMAS : CIVIL ACTION LAW : Plaintiff : No. : Electronically Filed VS. : : DIANA MARIE THOMAS, : DAVID M. DOUGHERTY, : DANIEL DIEHL, and KATHY : JO WINTERBOTTOM, : JURY TRIAL DEMANDED : Defendants :

COMPLAINT

1. This is a civil rights complaint brought for the violation of, inter alia, 14th

Amendment substantive due process rights by a Pennsylvania State Trooper. The

defendants in this action intentionally interfered in the familial affairs of the

plaintiff with the intent to break up and destroy his family. The plaintiff has been

unlawfully harassed and investigated and deprived of certain benefits and

emoluments of his employment. Plaintiff additionally claims violations of his 1st

and 4th Amendment rights.

Introductory Statement

Case 1:11-cv-02336-WWC Document 1 Filed 12/19/11 Page 1 of 13

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2. Jurisdiction is conferred on this court by 28 USC §1343 and 28 USC

§1343 (a) (3) & (4), and the remedial statute 42 USC §1983.

Jurisdiction and Venue

3. A jury trial is demanded

4. This Court’s supplemental jurisdiction as per 28 USC §1367(c) is also

invoked here.

5. Plaintiff requests punitive damages against any individual defendants.

6. Venue is properly in the Middle District of Pennsylvania because all parties,

witnesses, and evidence are common to Pennsylvania counties that lie within the

jurisdiction of that court.

7. On or about December 21, 2009 the defendant Diana Thomas demanded

that the plaintiff Timothy Thomas leave their marital home. Plaintiff complied with

her demands.

Operative facts

8. The plaintiff Timothy Thomas is a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper.

Diana Thomas took the form action because she had been involved in an extra-

marital affair six years.

9. Diana Thomas called Cpl. Daniel Diehl who is on duty at the PSP

Barracks in Chambersburg Pennsylvania, after she had forced Tim to leave the


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family home. On information and belief, she knew, and in fact had known, Cpl.

Diehl, before she contacted him.

10. At or around the same time Sgt. Kane informed everyone at the PSP

barracks roll-call, demonstrating a total disrespect and disregard for Thomas’

privacy and personal rights, telling everyone that Timothy's wife, Diana Thomas,

had "kicked him out".

11. With absolutely no reason to do so, but intending to harm and injure

Timothy Thomas for whom he possessed considerable subjective animus, Cpl.

Daniel Diehl agreed with Diana that he would tell Diana Thomas to flee the

residence and go to another location (namely her parents' home).

12. After plaintiff left the marital residence, the defendant Diehl, persisting

in a pattern of antagonistic mistreatment of the plaintiff, and demonstrating a

hateful, personal animus, with vindictive motives intending to harm the plaintiff in

his personal familial relationships, called the Upper Uwchlan Township Police

Department and told them that plaintiff was separated from his wife, that his wife

had kicked him out, that Timothy Thomas, a Pennsylvania State Police Trooper

was a "loose cannon", and a "prime candidate for murder/suicide". There was

absolutely no proper basis for Diehl to act in this manner or say these things


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13. Not coincidently, Diehl, knowing he was behaving unlawfully, and

further knowing that Timothy Thomas displayed no indicia of mental instability or

illness, took no actions to even suggest that plaintiff be evaluated or subjected to

examination as per state law, thus demonstrating his awareness that his actions and

words were baseless.

14. As consequence, the Upper Uwchlan Police Department stationed

officers around the residence of Diana Thomas's parents serving Diehl’s intentional

effort to create an incident and further humiliate and embarrass Timothy.

15. Meanwhile, the plaintiff, which was well known to Sgt. Kane and Cpl.

Diehl, was staying temporarily at the PSP barracks.

16. There were two minor children who were also victimized by the

misconduct of the defendants in this matter.

17. Upon information and belief, Diehl engaged in a policy designed to

divide the Thomas's and destroy the relationship that held the family together. His

divisive and personal misconduct was not justified or required by PSP rules.

18. The defendant Diehl intentionally created an inaccurate and pernicious

group of communications and accusations that were intended to create a matrix of

domestic relations impediments to communication and any possible resolution of

the differences between the Thomas'.


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19. Diana Thomas began to intentionally use the misguided credibility that

lawyers, law enforcement officers, and domestic relations bureaucrats attach to law

enforcement reports, pronouncements, and actions as an unverified and unjustified

method of attacking the plaintiff, forcing him to hearings and depriving him of his

children. The primary architect of these words and actions was the defendants,

David M Dougherty and Diana Thomas, who continued to disingenuously use

Diehl's unlawfully engendered words and actions, even after they were totally

debunked by the PSP.

20. The litany of wrongful civil actions and legal proceedings has so far cost

the plaintiff over $40,000 in legal fees, and was and is also causing him cruel and

intentional emotional upset and pain. This pattern of antagonistic mistreatment

originated with, and grew out of the dishonest attacks and actions by the defendant

Diehl, Sgt. Kane, and later by the defendant Winterbottom who used their badge of

state authority to set in motion investigations and actions resulting in unwarranted

injuries to the plaintiff and his career, all centering around his personal and

protected familial relationships.

21. On or about February of 2009 the plaintiff was approached by Stephen

Wise from the PSP IAD division. Wise was reviewing, or initiating, an IAD

investigation.


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22. The plaintiff asked Wise if he was there to speak to him and Wise said

he was there for something else and he would tell Cpl. Devilbiss.

23. At that point the plaintiff pleaded with Wise to "please help me." "I can't

see my child because of what you guys are doing. It's being used against me in

court." Upon information and belief, Wise took this information back to his IAD

superiors.

24. At different times, when plaintiff had attended domestic relations

meetings and responded to false PFA's filed against him by Diana Thomas PSP

officers had been there to watch and observe. They were in fact using the domestic

relations hearings etc., to gather information on the plaintiff.

25. Shortly after Wise returned to IAD the plaintiff received a

communication from Cpl. Devilbiss of PSP IAD upon the orders of the defendant

Kathy Jo Winterbottom, his supervisor, that if the plaintiff "keeps asking

questions." it can be construed as "interference with an investigation", and this

included instructions that he was not allowed to ask questions in putting

information together for purposes of seeing his kids and for use in defending

himself in his domestic court conflicts.

26. The plaintiff had a right to ask questions, particularly to ask questions

about an investigation into himself and to complain that the PSP was intentionally


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interfering by sitting on investigations in the meantime so that Thomas could be

persecuted and harassed in the Chester County Court system.

27. The defendant Kathy Jo Winterbottom, a lieutenant in IAD at the time,

was and is responsible for denying plaintiff's First Amendment rights to complain

and his right to ask reasonable and common sense questions about what was

happening to him and his family so that he could defend himself in court. These

are First Amendment violations.

28. Winterbottom is also responsible for violating the plaintiff’s procedural

due process rights pursuant to the 14th Amendment.

29. Winterbottom followed an intentional strategy of delaying and extending

IAD investigations into the plaintiff, which fact was known and utilized by Diana

Thomas, who in turn based her domestic relations attacks on the plaintiff in

Chester County upon the false and misleading PSP reports and information

generated by Diehl and others in the Pennsylvania State police. Winterbottom was

waiting and anticipating damaging court actions in Chester County (which had

been created by the PSP abuses described above) to in turn use them to conduct

administrative actions against Thomas seeking to damage and destroy his career).

30. Diana Thomas had her children electronically eavesdrop and record

conversations with their father Trooper Thomas in violation of both state and


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federal wiretapping laws. Diana Thomas has intentionally destroyed, with the help

of the Pennsylvania State police, the familial relationship between Trooper Thomas

and his children.

31. Only the legal thoroughness and integrity of the Chester County Court of

Common Pleas protected the plaintiff from the abuses of the Pennsylvania State

police and Diana Thomas. The Chester County courts after appropriate evaluation

dismissed the false and misleading PFA's and other false charges against Trooper

Thomas. However, this has not prevented defendants Thomas and Dougherty from

continuing to use the false and scurrilous accusations that Diehl put in his reports

to the local police even though both of these defendants know that Diehl's

representations were totally and completely false.

32. This is particularly evident since plaintiff has been totally and

completely vindicated regarding the dishonest and misleading PFA's filed against

him and the deprivations he has suffered. He is still not been able to see his

children on a fair basis. He has not seen his son Ethan since September 29, 2010

because of adverse court orders based upon misinformation provided by the

defendants Diana Thomas and David Dougherty.


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33. There is no rational or reasonable government purpose that has been

served to any degree, in any way, by the actions of the PSP defendants in this

matter.

34. The actions of these defendants have interfered in plaintiff's family

relationships for no rational or proper purpose. They have resulted in injuries to the

plaintiff relationships with his children and with his abilities to resolve his personal

domestic problems in the courts. They have amounted to a denial of the plaintiff’s

rights to access the courts and will and to petition for redress of grievances. They

have amounted to an abuse of process, particularly by attorney Dougherty.

35. The actions of the PSP defendants were carried out for one purpose

alone and that was to make a pretense of explaining and justifying what they knew

where the unlawful and dishonest words and actions of Cpl. Dan Diehl.

COUNT I

Plaintiff against the Defendant Daniel Diehl for the

Violation of his 14th Amendment Rights

36. Paragraphs one through 35 above are incorporated herein by reference.

37. The defendant Diehl intentionally created documents, initiated

communications, and encouraged hostile actions in third persons such as other

police officers for the sole purpose of destroying the plaintiff's private familial


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relationships, including his marriage, and depriving him of the company and

society of his children.

38. The defendant Diehl knew when he notified the Upper Uwchlan police

that there was no basis, including any public policy purpose, in expressing and

concluding his vindictive conclusions that Timothy Thomas was a "prime

candidate for murder/suicide".

39. Diehl’s actions were unlawful and in violation of the plaintiff’s

substantive due process rights to the integrity, privacy and primacy of his familial

relationships free of arbitrary and capricious government interference. Diehl knew

and intended that his dishonest and damaging actions and words would cause a

profusion of consequences damaging to Thomas and his federally guaranteed

familial rights.

Wherefore plaintiff demands judgment, jointly and severally, of the defendant

Diehl for the deprivation of his 14th amendment rights to the privacy and integrity

of his familial relationships, a substantive due process right, together with damages

for pain and suffering, humiliation and embarrassment, emotional distress, fees,

costs, attorneys fees and such other relief as may be deemed appropriate.

COUNT II

Plaintiff against the Defendant Kathy Jo Winterbottom for the Violation of his 1st and 14th Amendment Rights.


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40. Paragraphs 1 through 39 above are incorporated herein by reference.

41. Kathy Jo Winterbottom's threats to Thomas as a PSP/IAD supervisor of

Cpl. Devilbiss directed as he was working on the totally unjustified IAD

investigation into the plaintiff, that plaintiff was not allowed to gather information

or ask questions, constituted a violation of the plaintiff's rights to access the courts,

and petition for a redress of grievances under the 1st amendment. Winterbottom

knew her activities and orders constituted interference with plaintiff's substantive

and procedural due process rights because they prevented Thomas from properly

working on his legal rights to see his children.

Wherefore plaintiff demands judgment of the defendant Kathy Jo

Winterbottom for the deprivation of his 1st and 14th Amendment rights as

described above, together with damages for pain and suffering, humiliation and

embarrassment, emotional distress, fees, costs, attorneys fees, punitive damages,

and such other relief as may be deemed appropriate.

COUNT III

Plaintiff against the Defendants Diana Thomas and David Dougherty for the Violation of his 1st and 14th Amendment Rights and his rights

to be free of unlawful wiretaps

42. Paragraphs 1 through 41 above are incorporated herein by reference.


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43. Diana Thomas, knowing representations made by the defendant Diehl

were false, including her knowledge that plaintiff had never threatened or abused

her (to which she has testified), nevertheless brought false charges against the

plaintiff in concert with her lawyer Mr. Dougherty. Misusing Diehl's badge of

authority she and her lawyer, the defendant David Dougherty, continued, and still

continue, to use Diehl's misrepresentations in court proceedings against Timothy

Thomas knowing the same to be false and baseless in an intentional desire to

misrepresent. They continue to do this even after they long ago learned that Diehl

had been disciplined by the PSP and that his false and improper behavior had been

completely debunked i.e., Dougherty and Diana Thomas used Daniel Diehl's

original false and exaggerated reports to the Upper Uwchlan Police Department to

make false and dishonest representations in various court proceedings seeking to

injure the plaintiff while knowing the same to be inaccurate and incorrect. They

continue to do this even though Tim's domestic relations lawyer has insisted they

not do this. This constitutes an abuse of process for which Tim Thomas claims

redress in the form of attorney's fees and other damages.

44. This misconduct by the defendants Diana Thomas and David Dougherty

constitute an abuse of process (14th Amendment), a violation of plaintiff's First


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Amendment rights to access the courts and petition for a redress of grievances, and

an unlawful use of civil proceedings.

45. Additionally, Diana Thomas unlawfully wiretapped the plaintiff in

violation of both Pennsylvania and federal anti-wiretapping laws.

46. Despite knowing that Diana Thomas blatantly violated the

aforementioned statutes, the Upper Uwchlan Township Police Department and the

PSP will not take action.

Wherefore plaintiff demands judgment jointly and severally of the

defendants Diana Thomas and David Dougherty for the violation of his 1st and

14th Amendment rights (together with damages for the violations of his rights

under state and federal wiretap laws from Diana Thomas based upon both state and

federal statutes) all together with damages for pain and suffering embarrassment

and humiliation, emotional distress, punitive damages, fees, costs, attorneys fees,

and such other relief as may be deemed appropriate.

Respectfully Submitted, By: PAID# 23786

/s/Don Bailey, Esquire

4311 N. 6th Street Harrisburg, PA 17110 717 221-9500

December 19, 2011


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