Lespia King's award is reduced to $150,000.

George McMillan was fined for harassment.

Former Roanoke sheriff's Deputy Lespia King, who sued former Sheriff George McMillan and the city sheriff's office for sexual harassment and assault and battery, will get less than half what a jury awarded her in January.

U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Wilson issued an order Thursday reducing the overall payment to King from $325,000 to $150,000, saying the numbers assigned by the federal jury "cannot be squared analytically."

The decision on damages signals a new development in the long-running case. King, who worked in the city jail for four years ending in 2004, accused McMillan of asking her for kisses or to sit in his lap, groping her as he hugged her and telling her to leave her boyfriend, another deputy, for a relationship with him. When the case came to trial in January, nine other women testified that they had endured inappropriate behavior from the sheriff.

Wilson's order followed a flurry of court filings and agreed with McMillan attorney Elizabeth Dillon's arguments during a hearing last month that the figures assigned by the jury seemed to improperly mix a punitive element into the compensatory damages.

The jury had decided in King's favor on both a sexual harassment claim against the sheriff's office and an assault and battery claim against McMillan. King was awarded $50,000 from the sheriff's office in compensatory damages, $175,000 from McMillan personally in compensatory damages and $100,000 from McMillan in punitive damages.

The problem, Wilson wrote in the opinion accompanying his order, was that the unwanted touching that was the basis for the assault claim was a single incident in the pattern of events described in the sexual harassment claim. So the compensation for the single event should not be larger than that for the overall pattern, the judge wrote.

Wilson reduced the compensatory damages that McMillan must pay to $50,000, and made them concurrent with the compensatory award from the sheriff's office.

This means that King is due $100,000 from McMillan and $50,000 from either McMillan or the sheriff's office, or a combination of payments from both. Typically it takes further negotiation to work out the details of such multiparty payments.

With damages fixed, King's attorneys Terry Grimes and Melvin Williams can file for their fees against the sheriff's office -- an amount that will be in addition to the money awarded to King.

Grimes said Friday that the case had been a "long, hard battle" and that he hoped it now was resolved.

Wilson's decision also clears the way for McMillan and the sheriff's office to appeal the jury's verdict if either party decides to.

On Friday, Dillon said no decision has been made about whether to take the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.