Judge Glenda Hatchett, also known as “Judge Hatchett” on television, is taking a former Georgia sheriff who groped her two years ago back to court, this time to face a civil lawsuit describing the emotional distress she suffered after the assault.
The celebrity judge brought the suit against former Bleckley County Sheriff Kris Coody, who pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor sexual battery before resigning from his job.
Hatchett filed the lawsuit last month in the state court of Cobb County, which states that she suffered intense emotional distress after Coody violated her.
That incident took place on Jan. 18, 2022, at a Georgia Sheriff’s Association convention at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Hotel and Convention Center in Cobb County.
Hatchett said she was introduced to Coody there.
The lawsuit states that when Hachett told Coody she wasn’t familiar with Bleckley County, Coody “poked” Hatchett in the chest and “proceeded to grab her left breast, rubbing and squeezing it” while saying Bleckley County was “right in the heart of Georgia.”
The assault happened in “plain view” of people around Hatchett and Coody, according to the suit. Former DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown, who invited Hatchett to the conference, testified in court that he had to physically remove Coody’s hand from Hatchett’s breast, adding that Coody was “obviously intoxicated.”
In the suit, Hatchett recalled how the incident shattered her mental and emotional state, saying that she “could not stop crying and could not get out of bed” for days after the convention and that the assault made her “feel as helpless as she had ever felt in her entire life.”
Hatchett said in the suit that she is “scarred for life by Defendant Coody’s public battery of her,” adding that she had to go to therapy to “sort out the persistent helplessness, sleeplessness, anger, and distress that overwhelmed and weighed her down for months after the public battery.”
Hatchett told Channel 2 Action News that the suit really comes down to a “matter of principle.”
“It’s not about the money. It really isn’t and if I recover anything, I will put every penny toward building a Boys and Girls Club,” Hatchett told the station. She also said that if the assault were to happen to anyone, “it was best” that it happened to her because she has “the resources” to properly respond to it and understands the law.
Coody has already been sentenced to 12 months probation and 40 hours of community service. He also had to pay a $500 fine, take an alcohol and drug abuse class, and undergo a psychosexual evaluation.
The suit mentions that the Georgia State Patrol has investigated Coody in the past for reportedly leaving the scene of an investigation after he and his girlfriend got into a fight at her home and for letting a 12-year-old girl drive his patrol car.
The Georgia Sheriff’s Association is another named defendant in the suit. Hatchett claims the association knew about Coody’s “history of habitual intoxication” yet still failed to take “reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeable event” that he would assault someone.
The suit seeks damages and a jury trial for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
