ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: COVINGTON
SOURCE: DAVID REED THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Harsha Sankar of Covington, sued by a boy he wrongly accused of theft, was jailed for refusing to turn over records. When the judge ran out of patience, he ruled against Sankar in the suit.
Convenience store owner Harsha Sankar spent 64 days in jail for contempt of court for failing to turn over medical and financial records to a family suing him for malicious prosecution.
Friday he was released by an exasperated judge who said there was a limit to the court's patience.
But it was no victory for Sankar. In freeing him, Alleghany County Circuit Judge Duncan Byrd ruled against Sankar in the malicious prosecution suit, ordering him to pay $80,000 in damages to the family of the boy he mistakenly identified as a thief.
Byrd heard no testimony in the suit, but called Sankar's defiance the most ``radical and misguided'' behavior he's witnessed in his 26 years on the bench.
``This is the only sanction the court has left,'' Byrd said. ``Who can say what the appropriate amount of damages is without the benefit of a trial? But there has to be a limit on the court's patience. It would be ridiculous to keep him in jail indefinitely.''
Sankar had become a folk hero to some people in this small industrial city who believe the legal system confounds the common man.
At a rally outside the jail earlier in the week, about 60 people called on Byrd to set Sankar free. A banner that hung on a building across the street looked like a huge get-out-of-jail-free card from the ``Monopoly'' game. There were daily ``Free Harsha Sankar'' advertisements in the newspaper, and the local radio station took up the cause.
Many of the nearly 100 courtroom spectators said they still admire Sankar for refusing to relent to the court orders.
``He got a bum deal in this court,'' Joe Liptrap, a retired meatcutter from Clifton Forge, said afterward. ``That's way too much money for just standing up for what you believe in.''
The lawyer for the boy's family said the judgment was proper because Sankar has a habit of falsely accusing people of stealing from his store and needs to be stopped.
``Harsha is a spoiled rich kid who has more money than common sense and decency,'' Dabney Pasco said.
Sankar will appeal the judgment, his family said.
Judges commonly throw defendants in jail for civil contempt when they don't comply with court orders, but it is rare for defendants to spend more than a weekend behind bars.
``A few days in jail is usually enough to make people come around,'' University of Richmond law professor Hamilton Bryson said.
The Sankar saga started 14 months ago when a teen-ager was videotaped stealing two bottles of cheap wine from the Texaco Food Mart. Sankar thought he recognized the thief and gave police the boy's name and the tape. It turned out he was wrong.
When the boy was acquitted, Sankar took a megaphone outside the courthouse and denounced the prosecution's handling of the case. Then he wrote an eight-page letter criticizing the legal system and naming the boy who was acquitted. He stuck copies of the letter under the windshield wipers of cars around town.
Last June, the boy's mother sued, accusing Sankar of malicious prosecution and seeking $50,000 in compensatory damages and $150,000 in punitive damages.
Pasco also asked that Sankar be ordered to turn over his health records and financial records, and Byrd granted the request.
Sankar, who mistrusts lawyers and represented himself in the suit, argued that the records had nothing to do with the lawsuit and supplying them would violate his rights to privacy under the Fourth Amendment.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB