Sheriff sued by woman claiming kidnapping
By MARK LAW, staff writer
POSTED: May 9, 2008
STEUBENVILLE — An Amish woman who claims she was kidnapped by Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla in a conspiracy with her former husband has filed a lawsuit against the sheriff, the county commissioners and members of her husband’s family.
Wilma Troyer of township Road 280, Bergholz, claims in the lawsuit that Abdalla came to her parent’s home in Bergholz on May 7, 2007, and demanded to see her. She said the sheriff and a deputy intimidated her into getting into Abdalla’s sheriff’s department vehicle. Troyer said she was driven away from her home and taken down the road to meet with her estranged husband, Aden Troyer of Genesee, Pa.
Troyer filed the lawsuit herself in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court without an attorney.
Abdalla wasn’t available for a comment Thursday.
She is seeking damages in excess of $25,000 from the defendants.
Troyer is claiming assault and battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, kidnapping, civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of mental distress.
She also states in her lawsuit that she was taken to Indiana by her husband. She said she was then tricked into visiting her husband’s parents in Genesee, Pa. Within a couple days of going to Genesee, she snuck off and called her parents in Bergholz to come get her, Troyer said in her lawsuit.
Troyer said her husband found out about the call and forced her to stay with him. Later she claims she did escape with their two daughters and went back to Bergholz.
She said she started seeing a counselor for treatment for post-traumatic stress “for all I endured from the time I was abducted” by the sheriff.
On Sept. 14, the sheriff’s department raided the Berholz home of Troyer’s parents to serve custody papers obtained by Troyer’s husband for the two daughters.
Abdalla at the time said there has been allegations of sex crimes within the community and deputies have been threatened by members of the Bergholz Amish community in the past as part of the continuing allegations.
The sheriff said threats were made that deputies would be shot if they interfered.
(Law can be contacted at mlaw@heraldstaronline.com.)
