SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge dismissed with leave to amend a female attorney's claims that she was wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct with an inmate and banned from meeting privileges at Sacramento County jails.
U.S. District Judge William Shubb ruled Wednesday that criminal defense attorney Sage Kaveny, 37, failed to state her gender discrimination and due process claims and granted defendant Sacramento County's motion to dismiss her. Shubb gave Kaveny and her attorney Stewart Katz 20 days to file an amended complaint.
Shubb ruled that Kaveny didn't prove that Sacramento County gives preferential treatment to male attorneys in regards to inmate access at its jails.
"The complaint here fails to contain any allegation that male attorneys were treated differently under similar circumstances," Shubb wrote.
Kaveny says Sacramento County Sheriff's officers burst into a November 2014 meeting between her and a jailed client and falsely accused her of taking off her boots and dropping her pants during the meeting. According to the complaint, the guards stormed the meeting after she disappeared from sight of the security cameras momentarily.
The guards then immediately barred Kaveny from visiting her clients, according to the complaint.
Kaveny was prevented from visiting her clients for more than eight months and only after three court battles against Sacramento County were her visiting rights reinstated. She says the defendants spread lies about her to other inmates and tarnished her reputation with potential clients, according to her January complaint.
Katz said Shubb's ruling wasn't a surprise and that he would be filing an amended complaint within the court's deadline.
"I don't see his ruling as changing the essence of the case," Katz said in a phone interview.
Katz said Kaveny, who was admitted to the California State Bar in 2014, has no issues visiting inmates in other counties and that Sacramento County had "absolutely no evidence" to support its temporary ban against her.
"They had no evidence, it was embarrassing," Katz said.
The sheriff's department did not respond to an interview request Thursday morning.
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