Jury agrees former Lee deputy outed by PETA

Yerk awarded $155,000 in back pay for violation by group of anonymity promise over allegations of police dog abuse.

A former Lee County sheriff’s deputy who filed suit against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when the group allegedly broke a confidentiality agreement and cost him his job was awarded $155,000 in back pay last week.
A federal eight-member jury decided that an employee with the organization had, in fact, promised former deputy Jason Yerk anonymity if he agreed to corroborate a tip that Cpl. Travis Jelly had abused his police dog. An investigator with the group then released Yerk’s name to deputies looking into the claims.
“This case, for my client, was really never about the money,” said Yerk’s attorney, Jose Font. “This case was about him being vindicated for what had happened to him.”
Font said PETA had assured Yerk multiple times that he would remain anonymous. “They destroyed his career. They destroyed his livelihood.”
In his lawsuit, Yerk alleged he told the PETA worker that “the culture of his employer was to eliminate any employee that took a public adverse action towards a co-employee.” The sheriff’s office declined comment on the allegation.
Yerk, who worked as a police dog deputy with the office for five years and earned a base salary of $42,315, resigned in 2008 after internal affairs investigators determined he lied, telling them he had not spoken with PETA.
He has since declared bankruptcy and been unable to find work in law enforcement.
Phil Hirschkop, one of PETA’s attorneys in the case, said Yerk lost his job not because of PETA’s actions but because he lied to investigators.
“You just don’t lie to internal affairs when you’re under oath,” Hirschkop said. “This guy made his own problems.”
It wasn’t clear, Hirschkop said, whether the group promised him confidentiality and that Yerk had agreed to testify about the alleged abuse, at which point his identity would have been revealed anyway.
He said Yerk called to confirm a tip from the girlfriend of another deputy fired shortly beforehand for lying on an arrest report, telling a PETA employee he witnessed Jelly kick and punch his dog three to six times and suspend the dog by the neck with its leash.

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