Clerks Say Boss Bitter, Making Their Jobs Hard Pair Testified Against Court Clerk, Seek $1 Million Each

Two deputies in Pend Oreille County Superior Court Clerk Winnie Sundseth’s office say Sundseth is punishing them for providing evidence against her in a criminal case.

Deputy clerks Joan Green Clark and Leitia Evans each seek $1 million in a claim that could lead to a lawsuit against the county. They claim Sundseth illegally changed their working conditions and violated their civil rights by harassing them.

Sundseth declined to comment, but her county-appointed attorney, Keller Allen of Spokane, said the allegations “just aren’t true.”

Newport attorney Doug Lambarth, who represents Sundseth in the criminal case, suggested the claim may have been timed to allow a lawsuit to be filed shortly before Sundseth’s trial.

“So we’ll get more innuendoes and allegations without proof just before the trial,” Lambarth said.

Sundseth faces trial for the second time in June on a charge of second-degree rendering criminal assistance for allegedly harboring a fugitive in her office. Her first trial on the charge ended in a mistrial in December.

Visiting Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine of Spokane ruled that Special Prosecutor Clark Colwell asked an improper question. Deputy Clerk Evans said she didn’t think Sundseth was truthful when she told authorities she didn’t know where fugitive Randy Brown was.

Evans said Brown was hiding in Sundseth’s private office last June when a parole officer and police came to arrest Brown for a parole violation.

Before the trial started, Sundseth said she allowed Brown to wait in her office while her staff sought guidance from Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson. She said the incident was a “misunderstanding.”

In their claim, Evans and Clark say their working conditions in the cramped office they share with Sundseth have been “very hostile, stressful and offensive.”

They say Sundseth told them at one time that they couldn’t take their vacations until her trial was finished. Clark and Evans say Sundseth changed their work schedules and subjected them to numerous other forms of harassment.

Perhaps the most serious allegations are that Sundseth’s husband, Mitch Sundseth, told Evans “it was not too late for her to change her testimony.”

The two deputies say Mitch Sundseth “began to spend a lot of time in the clerk’s office” and seemed to stare at them in a deliberate effort to make them uncomfortable. Clark said Mitch Sundseth told her on one occasion that he couldn’t speak to her “because he was having difficulty controlling his anger.”

, DataTimes