On January 22, 2013, the day his case was set to go to trial, Dr. Glen Hurlston entered a plea of no contest to charges that he assaulted his wife at their Princeton, Texas, home on the previous New Year's Day. It wasn't an admission of guilt, just a suggestion that he didn't want to take his chances with the jury.
According to Hurlston, the case prosecutors were going to present at trial was based on lies -- lies that were concocted by Princeton Police Chief Jeffrey Barnett, who was allegedly banging his wife.
It's a tangled web Hurlston weaves in the lawsuit he filed last week against Barnett (now the top cop in Kyle) as well as several other officers and the city of Princeton.
See also: Former Fairview Cop Says Chief Fired Him In Alleged Sexual Harassment Cover-Up
The lawsuit accuses Barnett of sleeping with Hurltson's wife for years, ultimately fathering a child with her, whom Hurlston unwittingly raised as his own. Since cuckolding Hurlston apparently wasn't sufficiently humiliating, Barnett directed his officers "to conduct a campaign of harassment" against him, the suit alleges.
That campaign included his domestic battery arrest on New Year's Day 2012, which was not justified and was prompted by an investigation conducted "in such a slipshod and careless manner as to shock the conscience of any reasonable person."
The suit doesn't go into detail on how Barnett orchestrated the arrest, given that he'd taken charge in Kyle eight months before, other than to say that the arresting officers knew Hurlston's wife and were aware of her relationship with their former chief.
The harassment continued, according to the suit, with threats of arrest if he didn't stop calling and texting his wife's "new adulterous boyfriend" or if he "showed his face" in Collin County. (Collin County court records show one additional arrest on June 19, 2012, for violating a protective order, a charge that was later dismissed.)
All of this, Hurlston says, violated his civil rights.
Barnett declined comment on the lawsuit to the Houston Chronicle
Bob Gorsky, Barnett's newly hired attorney, issued a statement over the weekend calling the lawsuit "a case study in what frivolous litigation is all about."
"It strains the imagination that many months after he left Princeton Jeff Barnett would be a 'puppet master' controlling the actions of a city police department," Gorsky writes. "Furthermore, By Dr. Hurlston's own admission he did not contest the criminal charge, which is telling."
Gorsky expects that the case against Barnett will soon be dismissed.
While the alleged campaign of harassment was ongoing, Hurlston says his relationship with his wife "waxed hot and cold." He continued to support her, providing money for her to take a photography course in France, but they ultimately filed for divorce.
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