Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 5, 1992                   TAG: 9203050208
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: PEARISBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN SUING GILES TREASURER FOR $100,000

Jane Meador Tabor of Pearisburg filed suit in Giles County Circuit Court on Tuesday against Treasurer Richard T. Cook, accusing Cook of defamation and of intentionally causing her emotional distress.

"All I can say is it doesn't have any merit," Cook said Wednesday. Cook, who won his first term as treasurer in November, referred other questions to his attorney in Roanoke.

Tabor said she was hired by Cook on Feb. 5 and was to report to work on Feb. 18. In the meantime, she quit her job with Leggett in Christiansburg.

But on Feb. 14, Tabor said, Cook called her at work in Christiansburg and told her he was withdrawing the job offer because he could not fire another employee.

She already had taken the oath of office and her appointment as a deputy treasurer had been approved by the state Compensation Board.

Tabor said Cook asked her to lie and say she had changed her mind about leaving Leggett.

"In the same conversation, [Cook] asked Mrs. Tabor if she would still be interested in the job in the Treasurer's Office if it came available in `say four or five weeks,'" the suit claims.

Her conversation with Cook upset her, made her ill and she eventually had to visit a hospital emergency room, Tabor said.

After Tabor reported for work on Feb. 18 and Cook gave her a statement saying he had no job for her, she was "deluged" by phone calls from people in the community who had heard she had been fired, she said.

"[Cook's] conduct was outrageous and intolerable, offending the generally accepted standards of decency and morality in the Giles County community," the suit states.

The suit also charges that Cook said things in person and in writing about Tabor's job qualifications that were false, misleading and insulting.

On Feb. 18, the suit claims, Cook told county Supervisor Larry Jay Williams that the real reason he fired Tabor was that a former Leggett manager had told him that Tabor had stolen money. Cook knew at the time that his statement to Williams was not true, the suit says.

Tabor, 52, worked for Leggett for 30 years and has returned to work for the company. Leggett managers deny telling Cook that Tabor had done anything wrong and have provided written statements about Tabor's fine character, the suit says.

Cook also gave the Giles Board of Supervisors a written statement suggesting that Tabor was unfit or lacked the integrity to work in his office, the suit says.

As a result of Cook's statements, Tabor suffered psychological harm and injury to her reputation, the suit says.

Tabor is asking the court to award her a $50,000 judgment from Cook on both the emotional distress and defamation counts and interest and court costs.