From: The Record Searchlight, Redding, California
By Ryan Sabalow
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
A former sergeant in the Shasta County Marshal’s Office, fired amid allegations that he assaulted a prisoner, will get his job back — more than two years after he was acquitted in the very court he once guarded.
Daniel William Neville-Greenlaw, 39, will return to the marshal’s office on Jan. 2 and receive two years’ back pay and benefits, his Pleasant Hill attorney, Harry Stern, said Monday.
But details of Neville-Greenlaw’s financial compensation are unclear.
Stern declined to elaborate about how much back pay Neville-Greenlaw will receive, saying only that an arbitrator resolved the issue about a month ago.
A sergeant in the marshal’s office is paid between $48,804 and $62,292 a year, said Melissa Fowler-Bradley, assistant court executive officer for Shasta County Superior Court.
Neville-Greenlaw, who was sworn in this spring as a deputy with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, declined an interview request, Stern said.
“It’s certainly been a long, arduous road,” Stern said. “Dan is very much looking forward to going back to work with the marshal’s office — a job he did well and enjoyed a great deal. He’s a local kid and he truly feels he’s going back home.”
Shasta County Marshal Joel Northrup declined to comment about Neville-Greenlaw’s reinstatement, referring all questions to court administrators.
In November 2005, a jury found Neville-Greenlaw notguilty of charges that he assaulted a shackled prisoner in March 2004.
Neville-Greenlaw was accused of spraying Raymond Iorg with pepper spray when the prisoner became combative.
Prosecutors said that Iorg, who was in custody on a criminal charge, had been taken to a courtroom for an unrelated civil issue in family court and caused a disturbance in the courtroom.
Iorg was then moved to the holding cell where the alleged abuse took place. Other marshal’s employees witnessed the act and reported it to prosecutors.
Iorg, 32, has a history of domestic violence, drunken driving, burglary and other charges, court records show.
After a months-long investigation by the Shasta County District Attorney’s office, Neville-Greenlaw was charged with assault by a public officer under color of authority, filing a false police report and inhumane treatment of a prisoner.
The first two charges are misdemeanors; the third, an infraction.
A jury acquitted Neville-Greenlaw on the assault charge and the infraction in February 2006, but could not reach a verdict on the false police report charge. A retired Modoc County judge threw out that charge.
In his ruling, Judge Robert Barclay blasted prosecutors for trying to broker a deal with Neville-Greenlaw that would have guaranteed he wouldn’t fight his firing in exchange for the dropped charge.
Barclay said the move was “flagrant attempt” by court administrators to avoid paying damages in civil court proceedings.
Barclay was brought in to try the case after the Shasta County’s judges said there would be a conflict of interest if they presided over the case.
The marshal’s office, under the aegis of the state, provides security for Shasta County’s court.
