MIDLAND, Texas —
A U.S. district judge denied a motion by the City of Midland Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by five Midland Christian School staff members.
The lawsuit claims the City of Midland and Midland police officers severely damaged Jared Lee, Dana Ellis, Matthew Counts, Gregory McClendon and Barry Russell’s reputations when they were arrested for allegedly failing to report a sexual assault involving the school's baseball team.
The five were later no-billed by a grand jury, meaning they did not believe there was enough evidence to indict and go to trial at the time.
This is the second time the city has attempted to dismiss the lawsuit. The self-proclaimed “Midland Christian Five” amended the lawsuit following the city’s first attempt at dismissal.
The amended version adds charges brought against Lee, Ellis and Counts for an incident separate from the one all five were no-billed for.
During the oral argument on Tuesday, both the defense and prosecution made their cases to the judge, who ruled to keep the lawsuit alive and moving forward.
Afterward, Rusty Hardin — attorney for the MCS staff members — explained their case.
"The affidavit was just full of false statements, and that the police officers knew it, and that the people above them knew it, and they went and got an arrest warrant for these five administrators on false information," said Hardin.
Hardin has decades of experience, but he said this case is a first for him.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Hardin. "That affidavit had so many incredible false statements and we laid them all out, actually in the complaint that Aisha [Dennis], (one of his colleagues) filed or primarily drafted."
Hardin said that the defense filed this motion to dismiss the case for a lack of a sufficient basis, but the judge ruled otherwise. Hardin also mentioned that they support law enforcement, but this situation did a dishonor to the profession and they need to be held responsible.
At this time, no further court dates have been set.