by Chris Zoukis

A woman in Jacksonville, Texas was awarded $300,000 by a jury after suing a city police officer for deprivation of civil rights for raping her and for a later assault.

Evelyn Lewis, a house cleaner, was walking home early in the morning one day in March 2005. According to Lewis, a Jacksonville police officer, Larry Pugh, who was in uniform and driving a police car, offered her a ride. After accepting the ride, she said Pugh drove her to an abandoned trailer home and raped her.

Pugh was suspended on October 21, 2005, a few days after Lewis gave the Cherokee County District Attorney a written statement of the rape. On February 8, 2006, Pugh was fired after his arrest for sexual assault. Lewis alleged that Pugh assaulted her again on August 9, 2006, after he was no longer a police officer.

Lewis sued Pugh, who had been sentenced to 144 months in federal prison, for over $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages. She also sued the city of Jacksonville and its police chief for failure to supervise, deficient hiring and toleration of police misconduct, but they were both dismissed for lack of evidence.

In June 2007, a jury awarded Lewis $250,000 in punitive damages upon finding that Pugh acted with malice, willfulness or reckless indifference to Lewis' safety or rights. The jury also awarded her $25,000 in personal injury for each of the two sexual assault claims.

See: Lewis v. Pugh, et al., United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, Case No. 6:06cv357 (June 19, 2007)

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login

Related legal case