BATON ROUGE — The head of the police and fire departments' civil service board filed a lawsuit Friday against a former colleague and the city-parish, alleging he was subject to an authorized investigation amid complaints he wasn't fit to serve on the panel, much less as its leader.

Brandon Williams says former officer John Dauthier and the city-parish invaded his constitutional right to privacy. He says Dauthier broke several city-parish policies by mining a law enforcement database, and that "dirt" found there ended up in the hands of a blogger, the media and the public.

Both Williams and Dauthier were members of the Municipal Fire & Police Civil Service Board, but Dauthier has since left. 

Dauthier and others had questioned whether Williams could serve on the board, citing Williams' positions on other boards and his facing a number of arrests, though none ended with convictions. The police union in 2020 asked that Williams be replaced, saying he couldn't fairly handle police discipline cases.

In the lawsuit, Williams said that, among other things, Dauthier failed to receive permission from the police chief to investigate any city official.

"This rule is specifically intended to secure citizens ... from invasions of their privacy by tightly containing investigative activities to prevent officers from abusing investigative tools to invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens," the lawsuit says.

The purpose of the investigation, Williams said, was "to subject him to negative public scrutiny, to undermine the public trust and confidence" in Williams and cause him to be removed from the civil service board.

According to the lawsuit, a BRPD investigation determined that Dauthier's unauthorized searches began last May. Lawyer Stephen M. Irving said in an interview Friday the statute of limitations in the case are approaching, making a lawsuit necessary now.

A lawyer for Dauthier in previous cases involving the former officer did not immediately return a telephone call Friday seeking comment.