After being accused of breaking into the Dallas County Courthouse and being arrested two years ago, two men are suing the Dallas County Sheriff.

According to court documents, Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn have filed a civil lawsuit against Dallas County and Sheriff Chad Leonard from an incident that occurred in September 2019 when the two men broke into the Dallas County Courthouse claiming they were hired to do so. 

The two men worked for cybersecurity advisor Coalfire, which is headquartered in Colorado. The two men were contracted by the State Court Administration to conduct security tests but the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office was not aware of the agreement and arrested them when they were found on the third floor of the courthouse in possession of burglary tools at 12:30 a.m. September 11th, 2019. DeMercurio and Wynn were originally charged, but the Dallas County Attorney’s Office dropped the charges a few months later.

The civil lawsuit alleges negligence, false arrest, abuse of process, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and malicious prosecution against Dallas County and Sheriff Leonard after the two men showed their “get out of jail free” letter to Dallas County deputies but were arrested anyway. 

Sheriff Leonard tells Raccoon Valley Radio, it’s an unfortunate situation that the two men are directing their action toward the Sheriff’s Office instead of the State of Iowa and Coalfire and he is looking forward to defending the Sheriff’s Office’s actions in court when the time comes. 

Raccoon Valley Radio will bring you more information as it becomes official.