Former Upper Cumberland Development District employee Ashley Pealer has formally filed a lawsuit alleging Constitutional violations as reasons for being terminated from the embattled agency.

Pealer, through her attorney, W. Gary Blackburn of Nashville, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee Northeast Division late Wednesday morning, July 18.

Allegations involve the violations of the Stored Communications Act and the Wiretap Act, allegedly committed by Randy Williams, UCDD’s interim executive director, and Mike Gannon, Cannon County executive and chairman of the UCDD board.

Pealer is alleging text messages, private emails, and Facebook communications were used against her to “embarrass and intimidate her in retaliation for her refusal to participate in or remain silent about alleged illegal behavior of Wendy Askins, and to determine the extent to which she was involved in disclosing illegal conduct to the news media.”

No policy is in existence in the UCDD employee policy handbook regarding use of text messages on company issued phones.

The suit continues to allege that some 300 pages of private text messages, which were stored through Verizon, were accessed by Williams and Gannon and printed. Gannon then allegedly reviewed the text messages, along with Williams, and Michelle Price, Sherry Thurman, and Patty Ray, all current UCDD employees.

The suit continues to say that “at least one of the Defendants used the private password of the Plaintiff (Pealer) to invade and access the Plaintiff’s Facebook account as well. The Defendants intercepted a private email communication to Plaintiff’s Facebook account.”

The Store Communications Act “prohibits unlawful access to stored electronic communications.”

The access of the Facebook account constitutes a separate and independent violation of the Stored Communications Act.

The suit alleges, “The search was not done pursuant to a warrant or in the investigation of any matter concerning the Plaintiff’s employment, but was done following her termination for an improper purpose.”

Williams and Gannon, as public officials, are therefore individually liable, while the UCDD, “through its agents and employees, intentionally intercepted a wire or electronic communication from a third person to Plaintiff through the theft and misuse of her Facebook password,” the filing continues.

Prior to this filing, Blackburn sent a letter to Gannon and Williams stating certain demands on behalf of both Ashley and her mother, Kathy, also a former employee of UCDD.

The demands stated that the Pealers be reinstated with back pay or face pending lawsuits.

“I’m reasonably confident the number of defendants will grow,” Blackburn said at that time. “We have to do quite a bit of discovery.”

Pealer is demanding both Gannon and Williams’ answer damages in amounts no less than $1,000 for each violation and not less than $10,000 for the violation of the Wiretap Act, in addition to punitive damages and payment for attorney’s fees.