SC deputy files sexual harassment suit, naming sheriff and deputies as defendants

A female deputy employed by the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office who alleged she underwent an invasive strip search as part of her training has sued for sexual harassment, naming the sheriff, a former deputy, two current deputies and the county as defendants.

Brittany Cash, the plaintiff in the case, says in her lawsuit filed in late March that she was a victim of former deputy Phillip Tollison, a supervisor at the jail who pleaded guilty in 2022 to five counts of voyeurism and six counts of misconduct in office, according to Cash’s lawsuit, court records and a S.C. Law Enforcement Division report.

Tollison also secretly videoed female staff undressing, the lawsuit alleges.

Attorney David Morrison, who represents Tollison, did not respond to a reporter’s query about the case. Tollison has not yet filed an answer to the complaint.

Cash is still employed at the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office as a detention center officer. The State newspaper typically does not name sexual harassment victims, but in this case Cash is the publicly identified plaintiff in her lawsuit.

Despite Tollison’s reported multiple victims and potential 10-plus year sentences or misconduct, state Judge Walton McLeod IV sentenced Tollison to four months that he had already served in jail until getting out on bond, according to Laurens County court records of his September 2022 guilty plea and sentencing.

Tollison, who is no longer with the sheriff’s office, had to register as a sex offender as part of a plea bargain in the case, according to news accounts. He had been a Laurens County deputy since 2012, according to his LinkedIn page.

“Ms. Cash wants to hold everyone responsible accountable. Her primary concern is that this does not ever happen to anyone again and that female law enforcement officers can feel safe on the job,” Debbie Barbier and Cindy Crick, Cash’s attorneys, said in a statement.

Further, Barbier said, “Ms. Cash was disappointed in the sentence that Mr. Tollison received.”

Cash’s lawsuit alleges her civil rights were violated because the sheriff’s office failed to act promptly when informed of her allegations of sexual harassment, and also in its duties to protect deputies from predators over the years. The lawsuit does not allege any improper actions by the sheriff or the other two deputy defendants, but says the department had a “deliberate indifference” to protecting its employees from a hostile work environment.

“Deputies who were empowered and placed in positions of trust and authority by Defendants have been committing misconduct for years. Numerous sexual harassment incidents by male deputies directed toward female colleagues have occurred and little has been done to prevent these incidents,” Cash’s lawsuit alleges.

In an answer to the lawsuit Laurens County filed in late April on behalf of Sheriff Don Reynolds and two deputies, Vera Lawson and Joshua Cogdill, the defendants admit that Tollison acted criminally but deny Cash’s allegations that the sheriff and his two deputies are responsible for Tollison’s acts.

“It is denied that these Defendants in any way promoted, condoned, or authorized any of the misconduct as is alleged in this Complaint against Defendant Tollison, and in fact ... these Defendants have been supportive to the Plaintiff throughout her employment at the Laurens County Detention Center,” the answer said.

In her lawsuit, Cash alleged that Cogdill was Tollison’s direct supervisor, and Lawson, who supervised the office’s training activities, told Cash that Tollison would be her teacher for “pat down” body searches.

In response to Cash’s allegation that the sheriff’s office did not take prompt action about her complaints to them, the sheriff’s answer said, “As soon as the Plaintiff reported acts of misconduct on behalf of Defendant Tollison, the Defendants immediately took appropriate and necessary action to investigate those allegations, to notify SLED, and while under investigation Defendant Tollison resigned.”

And, the sheriff’s answer said, neither he nor staff ignored complaints in the office about sex harassment.

Attorney Russell “Rusty” Harter, a Greenville attorney designated by the sheriff’s office to answer the lawsuit and respond to media questions, told The State that it was the judge — “not those that are named in this lawsuit” — that imposed the sentence in Tollison’s case.

He declined further comment.

Laurens County, population 67,000, is located roughly midway between Columbia and Greenville.