By Sarah Cormier
C & G Staff Writer

HARRISON TOWNSHIP — Current Harrison Township building official Vijay Parakh filed a lawsuit in Macomb County Circuit Court against the four former members of the prior Board of Trustees who had investigated him for misconduct on the job while they were in office.

The complaint filed by Parakh on Jan. 29 lists former trustees Sharon Eineman, James Ulinski, Mike Rice and Robert Garvin, as well as Harrison Township, as defendants.

Parakh alleges that in May 2005, he discovered Eineman and a resident using his workstation and user identification to “alter information in the … township database.”

Parakh said he told Eineman to stop, but she refused. He then filed a complaint on the incident with Township Supervisor Anthony Forlini.

After that, alleged harassment from each trustee on separate accounts began, said Parakh. He alleges that Eineman “falsely accused the Building Department of performing special favors for Township Supervisor Anthony Forlini.” The lawsuit also states the Garvin accused Parakh of “looking at women inappropriately … and demanded that [Parakh] attend sensitivity classes.”

In the summer of 2008, the board voted to suspend Parakh while they formed a committee to investigate an incident from November 2006 where trees were cut down on a property on Crocker Boulevard. The four trustees accused Parakh of illegally cutting down the trees without getting the proper permits to do so.

In the lawsuit, Parakh states that the four trustees and the township violated the Elliot-Larson Civil Rights Act, as he states he was discriminated against because of his race. Parakh also said that the defendants are in violation of the Michigan Whistleblowers’ Protection Act because he suffered from retaliation after he saw Eineman trying to alter the township’s database.

Other charges listed in the suit are tortious interference with business opportunity because they suspended him, defamation, abuse of process, concert of action, civil conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Parakh’s Royal Oak-based attorney, Todd Flood, didn’t comment directly on the lawsuit. Forlini and Rice also declined to comment; Garvin did not respond to a phone call by press time.

Ulinski would only say that the matter is being tended to.

“It’s turned over and attorneys will be responding,” he said.

Eineman said she is confident she will be vindicated.

“It’s [the lawsuit] filled with lies and the lies will come out in court,” she said. “I have faith in our judicial system. The people that are being harassed are the trustees from the prior board … because it’s our character that is being dragged through the mud for doing our job and doing it well.”

You can reach Staff Writer Sarah Cormier at scormier@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1095.