Appeals court reinstates veteran prosecutor’s lawsuit against Mike Freeman, Mary Moriarty

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has revived a lawsuit that claims former Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and current Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty undermined a former veteran prosecutor because she was a whistleblower.

A three-judge Appeals Court panel issued an opinion Monday that two elements of Amy Sweasy Tamburino’s lawsuit against Freeman and Hennepin County have clear factual disputes that need to be determined in district court: Whether a contract between Sweasy and Freeman and the county was breached, forcing her to resign after 29 years in the Attorney’s Office; and whether Freeman and Moriarty violated the Minnesota whistleblower act in their conduct toward Sweasy.

Sweasy’s attorney, Sonia Miller-Van Oort, said the legal team was grateful for the Court of Appeals “giving a really thorough review of the record and the decision to reverse on the two most important issues on the appeal that relate to Hennepin County’s liability.”

The lawsuit was dismissed a year ago by Hennepin County District Judge Susan Robiner, who dismissed with prejudice all claims brought by Sweasy.

The Appeals Court reversed that decision but dismissed two additional claims brought by Sweasy for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and for fraudulent inducement. The opinion was written by Judge Elizabeth Bentley and signed by Judge Jeanne Cochran and Judge Randall Slieter.

Sweasy’s lawsuit centers on how she was treated by Freeman and Moriarty in the wake of a $190,000 settlement she reached with the county in 2022.

That settlement stemmed from a sex discrimination and retaliation complaint Sweasy filed with the state Department of Human Rights, in which she alleged Freeman made several sexist remarks around her and then undermined her career because of how she approached the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and three other Minneapolis Police Department officers for the murder of George Floyd.

The settlement created a new role within the Attorney’s Office for Sweasy that included several provisions. Most importantly for the current lawsuit was that Sweasy would become a principal attorney and lead a new complex prosecutions unit. In that role, she was set to handle significant homicide, child abuse, domestic abuse and cold cases along with matters relating to career offenders, while also directing other prosecutors. She would no longer report to Freeman, who was set to retire at the end of 2022, and instead report to Dan Mabley, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office criminal chief deputy, who would make staffing and caseload decisions for Sweasy’s unit.

Sweasy alleges that Freeman continued to undermine her career in her new role — including telling Mabley that a senior attorney should not be assigned to Sweasy’s unit and telling another senior attorney that it would be bad for his career to apply to Sweasy’s unit. Mabley also said Freeman’s conflict with Sweasy over the prosecution of Chauvin was “never resolved.”

That treatment led Sweasy to file a lawsuit against Freeman and Hennepin County in November 2022. After Moriarty took over the office, Sweasy amended and refiled the lawsuit in August 2023.

Moriarty removed Sweasy from the prosecutions unit, took away her roles as a manager and supervisor and reassigned her to work on the complex economic crimes unit within the special litigation division. In her first three months in that role, Sweasy was given three low-level cases, and even though she reported directly to Moriarty, Moriarty had no contact with Sweasy about her work.

Five months after Moriarty took office, Sweasy felt that her “career was effectively over” and resigned.

“The county’s and Ms. Moriarty’s efforts to take away all of Ms. Sweasy’s managerial responsibilities as a principal attorney and to try and move her into an entry-level position after 29 years of service was completely rejected by the court of appeals,” Miller-Van Oort said, adding the opinion shows that a jury could reasonably conclude there was breach of contract and violation of the Minnesota whistleblower act.

When it came to breach of contract, Sweasy’s appeal centered on the settlement agreement she signed with Freeman and Hennepin County which created her new role as principal attorney. Emails between a mediator and the county clarified that Sweasy’s new position would give her job security — including not being removed from the position without just cause.

When she was transferred to the special litigation division in 2023, Sweasy was largely relegated to overseeing cases that would traditionally have been “handled by line attorneys, not Principal Attorneys.” A footnote in the opinion clarifies that a line attorney is an entry-level, assistant county attorney.

Judge Bentley wrote in her opinion that the “settlement agreement obligated the county to assign Sweasy to a position with duties consistent with the principal attorney duties.”

Several colleagues said Sweasy was “being shunted off to the side” or “squeezed out.”

The whistleblower claim centers on Sweasy’s role in drafting the initial criminal complaint against Chauvin in the murder of Floyd. Sweasy did not agree with the decision to charge officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao in the murder and told Freeman she felt it “was in violation of Minnesota Rules of Professional Responsibility.” She also didn’t agree with some additional charges that were filed against Chauvin. Sweasy withdrew from the case.

Minnesota’s whistleblower act includes language that an employer cannot discharge, discipline, threaten, discriminate or penalize an employee who refuses an order because they believe it violates any state or federal law.

Sweasy claimed that both Freeman and Moriarty penalized her because of her position on the prosecution of Chauvin and the other police officers.

With regards to Moriarty, Sweasy said being removed from the prosecution unit, stripped of her managerial responsibilities and Moriarty’s lack of communication were “adverse employment actions.”

The county argued that Moriarty had legitimate reasons for moving Sweasy to the special litigation division. Those included “differences between Sweasy’s and Moriarty’s prosecution philosophies, Sweasy’s relationships with others in the office, and Sweasy’s skill set.”

The appeals panel ruled the evidence called into question whether the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office violated the whistleblower act, which would remove any protection of official immunity, and therefore the district court erred in dismissing the claim.

The lawsuit will either return to Hennepin County District Court, or Freeman and Hennepin County could appeal the decision to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Mary Knoblauch, the attorney representing Freeman, directed a request for comment on the decision to Hennepin County. The county declined to comment on pending litigation.