COLUMBIA — The arrest and unsuccessful prosecution of a former Lexington County teacher in 2022 was negligent, malicious and unconstitutional, the teacher contends in a new lawsuit against the Lexington One school district and Lexington County Sheriff's Department.
Brenda Inabinette, a former White Knoll Middle School teacher whom a jury acquitted in 2023 after she was charged with assaulting a student the previous year, accused the sheriff's department of arresting her without probable cause in a Feb. 12 lawsuit filed in federal court.
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That assault charge stemmed solely from a middle school student's accusation, the lawsuit says, which was put into a "highly editorialized" statement by a school administrator. Inabinette was never interviewed by sheriff's deputies, according to the complaint, even though she denied the allegations to her principal in a written statement.
Police said at the time of the arrest that the student had accused her of grabbing the lanyard around his neck and saying she wanted to strangle him. Jurors only deliberated for 20 minutes before returning their not guilty verdict, attorneys said.
Her arrest, and the ensuing news coverage, "ruined" her reputation, the suit contends. Inabinette told reporters in Columbia Feb. 12 that she was so shamed she didn't want to put her name down in a restaurant reservation for fear of having it called.
"I was humiliated, I was embarrassed and I was stripped of my professional dignity," she said, surrounded by her attorneys, family and former students.
Spokespeople for the school district and sheriff's department declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Since her acquittal, Inabinette has returned to teaching English at a high school in Orangeburg. Chelsea Glover, one of Inabinette's attorneys, said she was one of the teacher's former students and credited Inabinette for her success.
The suit contends that the sheriff's deputy who obtained the arrest warrant, Shelley Collins, was knowingly arresting the teacher without probable cause, which it describes as a violation of Inabinette's civil rights.
It also argues that several aspects of the arrest and prosecution show negligence on the part of the district and department, including an assertion that the arrest was due to an unspecified bias.
"What we're doing here today is really righting the wrong that was started, that should never have happened," Tyler Bailey, one of Inabinette's attorneys and a Columbia city councilman, told reporters.