By Kathee Baird
A Texas County court clerk has been awarded $1 Million dollars from a sitting county prosecutor who accused her of being involved in running a swinger sex ring out of the county courthouse.
A civil jury in Webster County, where the case was moved on a change of venue, awarded Mildred “Millie” S. Williams $500,000 in actual damages and $500,000 in punitive damages in her case against Texas County prosecutor Michael “Mike” Anderson.
Williams brought the lawsuit against Anderson after he began a smear campaign to defame her after she allegedly witnessed him sexually harassing an employee of his office.  She claims Anderson attempted to keep her from testifying against him by intimidation or coercion.

Anderson filed a lawsuit in 2006 against Williams and Monica Daniel-Hutchison claiming the women used their positions to do favors for friends, were involved in running a swingers sex ring out of the Texas County court house and were involved in a conspiracy to deprive him of serving in public office.  Anderson dropped the lawsuit about six weeks later, but not before he had alerted local media outlets to the pending litigation via press, and settled out of court with Hutchison for an undisclosed amount of money.Williams attorney, David Steelman, says, “It was important to her [Williams] to clear her name in connection to running a sex ring out of the courthouse.  Now that this very, very difficult situation has been resolved it is Ms. Williams hope that they can all put this behind them and work in a positive direction.”Texas County Presiding Commissioner Fred Stenger says the county was removed as part of the lawsuit several months ago and is not liable in any way for the monetary judgment.

It would take action from the attorney general or the governor to remove Anderson from office since he is an elected official. He is up for re-election in 2014. “I don’t see the AG or the Governor interceding at all. This was a personal lawsuit. Mr. Anderson serves his constituents in Texas County very well,” said Warren Harris who represented Anderson in the case.

Harris has thirty days to decide whether he will file an appeal in the case, “There was no evidence presented at trial that anyone thought less of Ms. Williams as a result of the lawsuit being filed. Obviously the monetary judgment is higher than we thought it would be,” Harris said. “We’ll have to consider our options on appeal and see what’s available. While I think the judge did a fine job in the case I do think there’s potential of some error in the case.”