NELSONVILLE, Ohio — The city of Nelsonville agreed in November 2024 to pay $60,000 to settle a police racism lawsuit with residents Bobby Hunt and Ashley Klinedinst.
The lawsuit argued that the city of Nelsonville and former city employees — including Nelsonville’s former city manager, former police chief and two former police officers — violated the civil rights of a Black resident and his family.
The suit alleged racist harassment by former Nelsonville City Manager Scott Frank. The suit also alleged that former Nelsonville Police Department Chief Scott Fitch put Hunt in a “choking position” and made comments about having previously shot suspects, causing Hunt to fear for his life.
Hunt and Klinedinst each will receive $18,000 from the settlement. The remaining $24,000 was earmarked for attorney fees. The suit initially sought $500,000 in compensatory and $1.5 million in punitive damages.
Nelsonville City Auditor Taylor Sappington did not immediately respond to a request for comment related to the settlement’s financial impact on the city, which has faced numerous lawsuits in recent years.
Hunt v. Nelsonville was settled in November 2024. The Independent obtained a copy of the settlement agreement from the city June 6, more than six months after placing its initial public records request on Dec. 6, 2024.
City attorney Jonathan Robe said in his Friday, June 6 email that he had not previously received a copy of the signed settlement agreement from “from the insurance-appointed lawyers.”
Asked whether he was satisfied with the agreement, Hunt’s and Klinedinst’s attorney Dan Klos said, “Nope — no. An agreement’s an agreement.”
However, Klos added, “Anytime you can make things better for your clients when they walk out of your office than when they [walked] in, I think you’ve done well for them.”
The city did not admit any liability through the settlement.
“I obviously concur with that,” said Fitch, who is now the Meigs County sheriff.
Fitch did not directly respond when asked explicitly if the police department did anything wrong in the incident with Hunt and Klinedinst.
“If Nelsonville settled for that, that’s fine,” Fitch said. “I don’t have any opinion on it one way or the other. Doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other.”
Frank, the former city manager, told the Independent in an email, “The lawsuit as it pertained to me was nothing more than a smear campaign from the same lawyer and former council person who have sued the city several times.”
Frank was apparently referring to former council member Greg Smith, whom Klos has represented in numerous lawsuits against the city of Nelsonville.
Multiple officers involved in the Hunt lawsuit had faced separate prior allegations of racism, among other allegations of misconduct.
In 2022, three officers required a young Black man, then a Hocking College student, to prove he owned the bike he was riding, based on false accusations by a white man. One of the officers involved was Benjamin Adams, who was named in the lawsuit.
Fitch himself was the subject of a sustained misconduct investigation during the time he served as a special agent for the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
He was fired by the BCI in 2019 after an investigation into his falsification of inspection records and his engagement in a number of racist and bigoted Facebook interactions, among other allegations.
The termination was later overturned through the labor arbitration process — but by that time, he was already Nelsonville police chief. Frank appointed Fitch over protests from some members of city council.
Fitch became Meigs County Sheriff in November 2022. Since then, he has hired multiple former officers he worked with at Nelsonville PD, including both officers named in the Hunt v. Nelsonville lawsuit: Adams and KJ Tracy.
Asked about his thoughts on the wrongdoing of the parties involved in the Hunt incident, Klos pointed to Fitch’s actions in Meigs County.
“If you have monitored the subsequent history of the parties who were involved — in their current litigation situation — I think you should be able to discern from that whether or not those particular parties have learned anything from that experience or not,” Klos said.
Klos said he was referring to a lawsuit against the Meigs County Sheriff’s Office over alleged police misconduct.
Two former Meigs County deputies, then working under Fitch, entered the home of Meigs County residents without a warrant and, according to the lawsuit, without “an exception to the warrant requirement.”
The deputies then subjected residents to violent arrest, according to the suit. In the defendants’ answer, they denied misconduct allegations and said, “Defendants acted in good faith at all times based upon the exigent circumstances at the time.”
In that case, Meigs County agreed Monday, June 2 to pay out $60,000 as part of an offer of judgment.
Fitch also is a primary defendant in a lawsuit filed in Washington County Court of Common Pleas in June 2024. The suit alleges that Fitch — wearing a Meigs County Sheriff polo and his gun and having introduced himself as a detective — engaged in a prank that involved accusing a counselor at a recovery program of lewd conduct. That case is currently set for trial in November.
Let us know what's happening in your neck of the woods!
Get in touch and share a story!
