Hillary Schieve, the independent Mayor of Reno,m Nevada, has slammed a lawsuit against one private investigator in the wake of discovering a GPS tracking chip hidden on her personal vehicle.
Officially filed this past week, the suit alleges that the investigator chose to trespass onto the government official’s private property for the express purpose of affixing a tracking device to the mayor’s vehicle without her consent. She stated that she was entirely unaware that it had been stuck onto her car prior to it being discovered by a mechanic during a maintenance visit.
“The tracking and surveillance of Schieve caused her, as it would cause any reasonable person, significant fear and distress,” explained the filed suit.
“In a time of heightened political tumult, the recent revelation of Defendants’ actions still managed to shock the conscience,” expressed the complaint.
The private investigator alleged in the lawsuit was named David McNeely and the company involved was 5 Alpha Industries. Reportedly, McNeely was carrying out the tracking work on behalf of a still currently unnamed third party.
This lawsuit was officially filed within Washoe County’s Second Judicial Court. The mayor is attempting to sue for restitution for invasion of privacy, trespassing, civil conspiracy, negligence, and attorneys’ costs to the amount of $15,000. It also seeks to force the private investigator to reveal the identity of the third party that allegedly first hired the investigator to track her.
Schieve won her bid for re-election this past month to carry out her third term as the city’s mayor and has led the city since 2014.
As part of a release issued to a local news outlet, 2 News Reno, the mayor explained that the finding of the tracking device first took place back in November prior to the elections.
“Before the election, I found out that someone had been stalking me. A high-end GPS tracker was discovered on my personal vehicle. I went immediately to Sparks PD to investigate,” stated Schieve in a release.
“I am publicly announcing this now, and did not make any public statements at the time when it was discovered, to make clear that this is about one thing, and one thing only: it is not ok to stalk people. We have good reason to believe that other members of our community were stalked with this same GPS device. This is about standing up to the rampant harassment of our civil servants and community leaders, and saying, this is NOT ok,” she went on.
The statement also promised to fire back at those who were involved in the incident.
“I truly cannot believe how ugly certain people have made our public discourse, and I will do everything in my power to push back. I am proud to have run a Clean Campaign, and I am also proud to be the one to take a stand with this lawsuit to say that stalking people is wrong.”
Schieve, who secured her recent election by a massive 16,000 votes ahead of Eddie Lorton, secured over 59% of the total vote.
