NORTHAMPTON — The former head of the automotive program at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School is suing the school’s trustees, director of security and former superintendent, alleging he was framed in a 2014 workplace investigation that cost him his job and landed him in court.
The 27-count complaint dated Sept. 12 was filed on behalf of Jonathan A. Yourga, 47, in Hampshire Superior Court and seeks $1.45 million in damages. It comes nine months after Yourga filed a demand letter with the city seeking $750,000 to resolve the matter in advance of this month’s legal action.
A judge acquitted Yourga of the felony larceny charges he faced as a result of the school’s investigation.
In addition to the school’s trustees, Jeffrey Peterson, the former school superintendent, and Kevin Brown, the school’s director of security, are named as defendants. The lawsuit leaves room for up to 10 other possible defendants who may be identified during the course of litigation, according to Yourga’s lawyer, Thomas T. Merrigan, of Sweeney Merrigan Law LLP in Greenfield.
“What happened to Jonathan Yourga here was extraordinary,” Merrigan said. “He was framed for felonies he didn’t commit. He suffered serious economic injury and serious emotional pain and suffering and humiliation … and it caused his family extraordinary anguish.”
Michael T. Cahillane, chairman of the school’s board of trustees, said he stands by the school’s actions while acknowledging that Yourga has a right to defend himself.
“I think proper action was taken when this whole thing was handled,” Cahillane said. “I feel bad for him (Yourga), but as far as our action, we have attorneys looking into it and we will have counsel take proper action.
“We will go through each count and defend it,” he added of the lawsuit.
Peterson, who is now principal at William J. Dean Technical High School in Holyoke, declined to comment. Brown could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Yourga resigned from his job of 21 years in June 2014 after he was charged with two felony counts of larceny over the alleged theft of two cars that had supposedly been donated to Smith School in 2006 and 2011. The charges came after school officials began investigating a complaint against Yourga lodged by a student who alleged favoritism in the selection of a student to attend an out-of-school event.
Described as a “petty matter” in the lawsuit, the complaint alleges that Peterson “used this inane student concern to pretextually investigate Yourga to contrive reasons to terminate him.”
Yourga was interviewed by Brown, the director of security, and other administrators on May 1, 2014, after which Brown made the statement to an administrator, “I think we got him,” according to the lawsuit.
“Using the insubstantial and meager circumstances of a student’s dissatisfaction that she had not been chosen to participate in an out-of-school event, Peterson seized the opportunity as a ruse to devise whatever he could against Yourga,” the complaint reads.
The investigation led to Brown gaining access to Yourga’s personnel file to “resurrect a stale 2006 matter involving a misunderstanding over a junk motor vehicle that Yourga had acquired from the owner when he offered it for ‘free’ in a local newspaper,” according to the complaint. Former school superintendent Frank Llamas had investigated that incident and found no wrongdoing by Yourga. The car was a 1985 Pontiac Parisienne and the question at the time was whether it was given to Yourga personally or whether it had been donated to the school’s automotive shop.
The complaint alleges Peterson and Brown ignored the documents in Yourga’s personnel file showing the school had investigated the matter and found no wrongdoing before contacting police to file a complaint. It alleges Brown then “manipulated” those circumstances to allege a second larceny by Yourga in 2011 involving a 1998 Nissan Altima that had been owned by a teacher.
“The teacher gave it to Yourga in 2011 and signed RMV paperwork acknowledging it as a gift to Yourga,” according to the complaint. “Contriving a larceny allegation, Peterson and Brown ignored the fact that the 1998 Nissan Altima was in such poor condition that it was unsuitable for acceptance as a donation to the Smith Vocational High School.”
On May 21, 2014, at 8:25 p.m., Northampton Police executed an unannounced search warrant at Yourga’s home on Earle Street, seizing the 1998 Nissan Altima, an experience that was “frightening, embarrassing and humiliating to Yourga, his wife, and his two young children,” the complaint states.
In a January 2015 trial in Northampton District Court, Judge William O’Grady ruled that a prosecutor failed to prove allegations that Yourga misled two people who wanted to donate cars to the school’s automotive program in 2006 and 2011 and that he attempted to sell one car and keep another for personal use.
Yourga, who now works as an automotive instructor at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, said then that the car owners willingly signed the vehicles over to him and that he did not mislead them. The Nissan Altima was returned to him by police after he was found not guilty of stealing the cars.
“There wasn’t a shred of merit to it,” Merrigan said. “It was based on malicious motives emanating from who knows what.”
Merrigan said the affair caused Yourga extreme difficulty in finding employment, which caused serious economic hardship.
“It’s a reflection of what the defamation has done to him,” he said.
The complaint alleges negligence, civil rights and contractual violations, invasion of privacy, conspiracy, defamation, malicious prosecution. and abuse of process. It seeks a trial by jury and award of compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney’s fees.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.