Updated 7 p.m.

Closing arguments have concluded, but the jury in the case against George McMillan and the Roanoke Sheriff’s Office will not begin deliberations until morning.

In their last statements, the four attorneys in the case summed up two days of testimony. Melvin Williams, who is representing former deputy Lespia King, said his client never objected to former Sheriff George McMillan’s offensive behavior because she was afraid for her job. Throughout his statement, Williams repeated a refrain, “He’s a sheriff. He’s God.” But, he said, with her lawsuit, King was finally standing up for herself. “The sheriff does have to answer to someone,” Williams said.

Elizabeth Dillon, who is representing McMillan, said King consented to whatever occurred because she did not protest at the time.

John Gibney, who is representing the sheriff’s office, asked why there were no witnesses who had seen McMillan touching King inappropriately. If the jury decided McMillan did act improperly, he asked that it not attach blame to the sheriff’s office as an institution.

Finally, Terry Grimes, who is also representing King, delivered a rambling statement that included the preamble to the Constitution and references to women in burqas. He called McMillan a “predator” who preyed on young women. He said the case was about “abuse of power” and asked the jury to send a message with its verdict.

The eight jurors, seven women and one man, are to return at 9:30 Wednesday morning.

Updated 6:25 p.m.

After two days of testimony, the case against former Roanoke Sheriff George McMillan and the Roanoke Sheriff’s Office is about to go to the jury.

This afternoon, Terry Grimes, attorney for plaintiff Lespia King, brought back to the stand Dreama Farmer, who had been McMillan’s office manager. She testified that on one occasion she entered his office with some papers and found him seated in his chair with Deputy Rachel Wylie standing between his legs and embracing him. “I saw and heard a kiss,” she said.

She said she immediately left the room. She later spoke to Wylie, who confirmed that she and the sheriff were kissing. That contradicted McMillan’s statement earlier in the aftenoon that he had never kissed Wylie.

Here’s a quick recap of the key witnesses in the case – what they said, and how the sheriff responded to their testimony during his own time on the stand:

* Jennifer Donovan: She said McMillan frequently talked about women's bodies and told Donovan she was hired despite another candidate's having larger breasts. She testified that he twice touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable. McMillan testified that he was going to terminate her because she had not assembled the sheriff’s office annual report to his satisifaction, but that Donovan asked to instead be alloewed to resign.

* Rachel Wylie: She said that McMillan often hugged her and tried to kiss her on the lips. He would squeeze her legs and say how strong they were, she said. McMillan insisted he had never kissed her, though he said he had been kissed on at least two occasions by her. “I didn’t go to her. She came to me,” he said. He said the kisses were after he gave her money: once $200 for a vet bill for her cat and another time when he gave her advice about trying to reconcile with her estranged father. On a third occasion, he said, he gave her $200 for clothes and she hugged him. None of this was sexual, he said. “It was just a thank you.”

* Rhonda Johnson: She said that McMillan called her into his office, told her she had a nice behind and should show it off. The sheriff put his hand on her inner thigh, she said, and she moved his hand away. McMillan said deputies told him Johnson seemed bulimic. “She had lost a lot of weight,” he said. “Her britches were really baggy on her.” He told her he could help her get treatment, which she declined. He said he encouraged her to get fitted for a new uniform. He testified that he terminated Johnson after she fired her pistol during a dispute with her husband.

* Vicky Foutz: She talked about what women at the office called “the McMillan hug”: an embrace from behind that cupped the breasts. McMillan said he never gave her a hug where he cupped her breasts.

* Kristen Lineberry: She said she applied at the sheriff’s office as a recent high school graduate in 2000. McMillan told her he was a touchy-feely person, and if she enjoyed that maybe they could end up having sex. McMillan said there were various disciplinary issues with Lineberry, including that she’d used a sheriff’s office ID to get into a bar while underage and that she went to a mall in uniform to pick up her boyfriend when he was accused of shoplifting. He was going to fire her, he said, but she quit.

* Dreama Farmer: She said McMillan frequently pressed his body against her and while hugging her would touch her breasts and buttocks. She said he described her job as a "working wife position" and said she began wearing pants rather than the skirts that were part of her uniform because she felt unsafe around the sheriff. McMillan said he only touched her on the back and didn’t recall making any “working wife” comment. “I have one wife, and she’s at home,” he said.

* Erin Bachinsky: She said that when she applied for a job at the sheriff’s office, McMillan asked about her sexual preference and religious beliefs, and asked whether she was dating anyone. He said he was looking for someone who would be his “at-work wife.” McMillan said as soon as he saw her legs were tattooed, “I said, ‘Oh Lord, I can’t have that girl.’” He denied making the “work wife” comment and said he couldn’t have compared the job to that “because I’d already decided I wasn’t going to hire her.”

* Angela Linkous: She said McMillan once told her that if she would go on a date with him, he would buy her a new desk. Then he hugged her and said he was just picking. Linkous said McMillan’s repeated bearhugs, and harassment by deputies who continually asked her for dates and rubbed her shoulders, eventually drove her to quit. McMillan said he never promised to buy her a desk in exchange for a date, and he never gave her bearhugs. However, he said, “I may have done her like I do anyone. ... When I talk to people, I touch them.”

* Tamara Speight: She said McMillan once got in an elevator with her, looked at her chest and said, “I bet you drive my innmates crazy with your chest.” McMillan said he did not even know who she was until he saw her on TV earlier in the case.

Updated 4:40 p.m.

Current Sheriff Octavia Johnson testified this afternoon, saying she had nothing to do with any employment decisions regarding King. Johnson is named in the lawsuit as a representative of the sheriff's office but is accused of no personal wrong-doing.

Johnson testified that after her unsuccessful run for sheriff in 2001, George McMillan transferred her from court duties back to the jail, where she’d worked before. She said she would have preferred to stay in her court job but did not complain. Four years later, she defeated McMillan and was named sheriff.

McMillan has claimed that the lawsuit was politically motivated. Johnson has denied any role in the suit.

Updated 3:45 p.m.

The defense is continuing with just a few witnesses left, attorneys say. Former Sheriff George McMillan returned to the stand this afternoon to say the 10 women who have testified about his inappropriate sexual behavior were making it up. "None of it happened. It's not true," McMillan said.

However, on cross-examination by Terry Grimes, McMillan said he had told deputy Rachel Wiley that he loved her in e-mails and text messages. Grimes entered into evidence two e-mails from July 2004. In one, McMillan included a photograph of himself, saying it was for her to save on her laptop, and signed it "Love you (too much) George." In the second e-mail, which was almost two weeks later, he said having to tell her not to contact him anymore was the hardest thing to do and he needed to get his personal feelings together. McMillan told Grimes he never kissed Wiley, contrary to her testimony.

"I pretty much thought of Rachel Wiley as my own daughter," he said, adding that he felt sorry for her because of problems she had with her parents.

Also testifying this afternoon were James Brubaker, second-in-command of the Roanoke Sheriff's Office, and Bobby Russell, a former officer with the department. Both were at the regional jail association dinner where King claims McMillan hugged and touched her inappropriately. In that incident, King says McMillan put his arm around her, touched her buttocks and said he wanted to make her boyfriend jealous.

Brubaker and Russell said they did not see him touch her buttocks but were not watching continuously.

Elizabeth Dillon, who is representing McMillan against an assault and battery claim from King, has rested her defense. John Gibney, who is representing the sheriff's office against King's sexual harrassment claim, is resuming his case now with a few more witnesses expected.

Updated 2:20 p.m.

Lespia King was the plaintiff’s last witness, and the defense is now preparing to mount its case.

After lunch, the defense finished cross-examining King. She acknowledged that she’d never complained to former Sheriff George McMillan about his behavior. She said that he did not directly threaten her, but that she felt her job was threatened because he told her that her career was going nowhere until she dropped her boyfriend for him.

With King’s cross-examination finished, the jury was sent from the room and both defense attorneys offered standard motions for judgment, saying that King had not made her case.

Elizabeth Dillon, who is representing McMillan, said that the former sheriff’s actions, even if they occurred as King described them, were not assault. Nor were they battery, which is defined as unwanted touching, because King’s history of silence and inaction implied consent, she said.

Terry Grimes, King’s attorney, disagreed. “Silence does not equal consent under Virginia law,” he responded. “It’s a jury question.” U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson agreed, saying he saw a possible case for battery. He said he would hold the motion regarding assault under advisement.

John Gibney, who is representing the sheriff’s office, offered a similar motion regarding the sexual harassment claim against the sheriff’s office. He echoed Dillon’s assertion that King never said “no.”

The testimony of other employees was irrelevant, Gibney asserted. “None of that, with one exception, was part of her [King’s] universe at the time,” he said. “All she had was rumor, except for Rhonda Johnson.” Johnson testified Monday that McMillan had told her she had a nice behind and needed to show it off, and that he had put his hand on her inner thigh. King testified today that she and Johnson were friends.

Wilson disagreed, saying the testimony showed a possible “class-based way of doing business” in the sheriff’s office under McMillan. He denied Gibney’s motion for judgment.

The defense expects to call about five witnesses. The case could go to the jury as early as this afternoon.

Updated 12:48 p.m.

The court has recessed for lunch mid-way through the cross-examination of former Roanoke Deputy Lespia King and after a parade of women who accused former Sheriff George McMillan of harassing them.

King took the stand to repeat an account that her attorney, Terry Grimes, delivered Monday in his opening statement: that McMillan, who was sheriff when King worked at the Roanoke jail, harassed her with hugs, touching her buttocks, and unwelcome comments that she should drop her boyfriend, who was also a deputy, and have a relationship with him.

"He controlled my job, he controlled my boyfriend's job. ... He held my career hostage. ... I felt he was asking me for sexual favors," King said.

The lawsuit she filed in 2005 includes an assault and battery claim against McMillan for unwanted touching, and a sexual harassment claim against the sheriff's office. McMillan took the stand Monday to deny any inappropriate behavior with King.

John Gibney, who is representing current Sheriff Octavia Johnson -- who is named in the lawsuit as a representative of the sheriff's office, but is accused of no personal wrong-doing -- took the first cross-examination of King. He noted that King never told McMillan his behavior bothered her and that the resignation letter she turned in in January 2004 was effusive in thanking the sheriff. King said she largely copied a form letter for her resignation notice.

Gibney also returned to a point the defense has made throughout the case: how much King knew about other women's experiences with McMillan at the time she worked for him. One of the legal elements of a sexual harassment case is whether there was a hostile work environment, and King's knowledge would bear on this. King said that when she worked for McMillan, she did not know about most of the other experiences related so far during the trial, but did know about some.

Almost since King filed her lawsuit, the defense has tried to bar the testimony of women who say their experiences with McMillan were similar to King's, but Grimes succeeded Monday and today in getting their statements in front of the jury.

Five women spoke this morning before a recess to let Kristin Darnell Lineberry collect herself. She'd burst into tears while testifying that McMillan said he was a touchy-feely person and that if she liked that, perhaps they could have sex. Returning after the recess, she said McMillan frequently hugged her, patted her on the buttocks, grabbed her and told her she was pretty, and after she'd been reprimanded, told her she could make it up to him by having sex with him.

Gibney suggested Lineberry had a child with an inmate but abandoned this line of questioning when Lineberry firmly denied it and named the father of her child.

Also testifying after the morning recess were Dreama Farmer, who'd been McMillan's office manager. Her voice shaking, she said McMillan frequently pressed his body against her and while hugging her would touch her breasts and buttocks. She said McMillan, who was married, described her job as a "working wife position" and said she began wearing pants rather than the skirts that were part of her uniform because she felt unsafe around the sheriff.

Farmer said she saw the sheriff treat other women similarly, and that he often drew the blinds in his office before having meetings with women staff members that might last hours. She said he did not draw the blinds when meeting men. Women seemed afraid to meet with the sheriff, Farmer testified.

On cross-examination, Farmer said she had limited contact with King during her job and never told her about the problems she had with McMillan.

Updated 10:50 a.m.

The second day of the sexual harassment trial against former Roanoke Sheriff George McMillan and the Roanoke Sheriff’s Office began with renewed arguments about whether to allow the testimony of other women who worked at the sheriff’s office or the jail, and who said they had been harassed by McMillan.

Lespia King, a former deputy sheriff, filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming that McMillan sexually harassed her and created a hostile workplace by inappropriately touching, hugging and talking to her.

Both defense counsels, John Gibney representing the sheriff’s office and Elizabeth Dillon representing McMillan, moved for mistrials, saying testimony by three former and current sheriff’s office employees on Monday was so inflammatory that there was no way the jury could consider the case fairly. Monday's testimony included assertions that McMillan had made sexual comments to the women and had touched them inappropriately.

There also was wrangling this morning over what instructions U.S. Circuit Judge Samuel Wilson would give the jury regarding the testimony of the other women.

“I don’t think any instruction can clear up … the damage done by the testimony,” Gibney said.

Wilson, however, said he thought the additional testimony spoke to elements of the legal definition of sexual harassment – whether the conduct in question was based on gender, and whether it created a hostile work envrionment.

Testifying so far today have been five women who said McMillan acted inappropriately toward them:

Vicky Foutz, a payroll clerk in the sheriff’s office, discussed what she said women at the office called “the McMillan hug”: an embrace from behind that cupped the breasts.

Erin Bachinsky talked about applying for a job as the sheriff's office public relations officer in 2002, when she was a Radford University graduate student. She said McMillan asked about her sexual preference and religious beliefs, and asked whether she was dating anyone. He said he was looking for someone who would be his “at-work wife.”
    
Tamara Speight, who worked for Prison Health Services, a contractor at the jail, said McMillan once got in an elevator with her, looked at her chest and said, “I bet you drive my innmates crazy with your chest.”

Angela Linkous, another Prison Health Services worker, said McMillan once told her that if she would go on a date with him, he would buy her a new desk. Then he hugged her and said he was just picking. “But I felt it was inappropriate,” she said. Linkous said McMillan’s repeated bearhugs, and harassment by deputies who continually asked her for dates and rubbed her shoulders, eventually drove her to quit.

Last to the stand this morning was Kristen Darnell Lineberry. She said she applied at the sheriff’s office as a recent high school graduate in 2000. McMillan told her he was a touchy-feely person, and if she enjoyed that maybe they could end up having sex. With that, she broke into tears and the judge called a recess.

After each woman’s testimony, the defense has sought to establish that the women had little contact with King, suggesting that she knew little about their experience at the time of her own alleged interactions with the sheriff, and that their work experience therefore was not relevant to hers.