Stephanie Fritz alleges retaliation, malicious prosecution and other claims after SLED found no criminal wrongdoing and a state council rejected a misconduct allegation
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
A former Beaufort Police Department officer who was fired in 2023 has filed a lawsuit against the City of Beaufort and its current and former police chiefs, alleging she was retaliated against, improperly terminated and subjected to investigations that ultimately resulted in no finding of criminal wrongdoing or misconduct against her.
Stephanie Fritz filed the lawsuit Aug. 10 in Beaufort County Court of Common Pleas against the City of Beaufort, former Police Chief Dale McDorman and current Police Chief Stephanie Price, who was deputy chief at the time of Fritz’s termination.
Beaufort County court records show the lawsuit remains pending in the Court of Common Pleas.
The lawsuit alleges malicious prosecution, abuse of process, negligence, civil conspiracy, tortious interference with contract and a violation of the South Carolina Payment of Wages Act. Fritz is also asking the court to require the city to provide her with a grievance hearing over her termination.
The allegations in the lawsuit are Fritz’s account of the events and have not been proven in court.
Fritz worked for the Beaufort Police Department for more than 15 years, beginning in July 2008. During her career, she served in several roles, including patrol officer, school resource officer, victim advocate and investigator in the special victims unit. According to the complaint, she was promoted to sergeant in 2022 and had received positive employment evaluations with no previous disciplinary actions.
South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy records independently show Fritz was employed by Beaufort Police from July 2008 until Oct. 13, 2023.
Lawsuit alleges problems began after survey
According to the lawsuit, the dispute dates to 2022, when Fritz was appointed to the police chief’s improvement council and members were asked to complete a workplace survey.
Fritz alleges she raised concerns in the survey about the department’s response to juvenile delinquency and mental health calls, officer job satisfaction, compensation, equal opportunity and employee morale.
The complaint alleges McDorman later called Fritz into his office and challenged her responses. According to the lawsuit, McDorman suggested Fritz’s negative responses were related to stress from her recent divorce rather than legitimate concerns about the department.
Fritz alleges she believed McDorman’s response was based on her sex and that a male officer would not have been treated the same way. She subsequently filed an internal hostile work environment and sexual harassment complaint.
According to the lawsuit, the city hired an employment defense attorney to investigate. The investigation determined the conduct did not rise to the level of unlawful discrimination, but the complaint alleges McDorman received disciplinary action as a result of the factual basis underlying Fritz’s complaint.
Fritz alleges increased scrutiny and retaliation followed.
In June 2023, Fritz received what the lawsuit describes as a “deficiency letter” that was initially treated as disciplinary action. She filed a grievance, which she was initially told had been accepted.
A few days later, according to the complaint, Price told Fritz the grievance would no longer be accepted because the deficiency letter would no longer be treated as disciplinary action.
By September 2023, Fritz was placed on administrative leave over what the department described as inaccuracies in her documentation, according to the lawsuit.
She returned Oct. 3 and was demoted from investigator to patrol officer. The complaint states Fritz had worked in investigations for nearly 10 years and was given four days to prepare for the transition.
Files become focus of dispute
At the center of Fritz’s eventual termination were electronic investigative files.
According to the lawsuit, investigators used a shared drive on the city’s server for cases that were still in the work-product stage, while final versions of official documents were stored in the department’s formal records management system.
After her demotion, Fritz was expected to lose access to the investigative drive. The complaint says she agreed to finish work on certain open cases as they were transferred to another investigator and downloaded files from the shared drive as part of that process.
Fritz maintains that doing so violated neither department policy nor any directive.
The change to road patrol also meant Fritz would move from a business-day schedule to 12-hour shifts that included weekends, according to the complaint. After beginning the new schedule, Fritz went on medical leave for two weeks.
On Oct. 11, 2023, while Fritz was on leave, the department made a referral to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division alleging she had “improperly deleted electronic files from the BPD server,” according to the lawsuit.
Two days later, Price called Fritz to police headquarters and terminated her for removing files from the shared drive, the complaint alleges.
On Oct. 18, McDorman and Price submitted a personnel change-of-status form to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy alleging Fritz had intentionally deleted case information, failed to complete reports, failed to follow direct orders and mishandled evidence, according to the lawsuit.
Fritz disputed the allegations before the academy while also cooperating with SLED’s investigation.
SLED investigation ends, state council hears misconduct case
According to the lawsuit, SLED concluded its investigation Aug. 30, 2024, finding no criminal wrongdoing by Fritz.
The misconduct matter reported by Beaufort Police also went before the South Carolina Law Enforcement Training Council.
Fritz’s case was heard by the council Aug. 18, 2025. The allegation before the council was that Fritz had willfully provided false, misleading, incomplete, deceitful or incorrect information on a document, record, report or form.
A hearing officer recommended finding that the allegation had not been proven by a preponderance of the evidence, restoring Fritz’s eligibility for law enforcement certification in South Carolina and expunging all evidence related to the misconduct allegation filed by Beaufort Police.
Fritz and her attorney, Michael Laubshire, attended the Aug. 18 hearing and spoke on her behalf.
No representative from the Beaufort Police Department attended the hearing to present the department’s case, according to the council’s official meeting minutes.
After hearing from Fritz and her attorney, the council unanimously accepted the hearing officer’s recommendation, found no misconduct, ordered the records related to the allegation expunged within 30 days and granted Fritz eligibility for law enforcement certification.
The council’s final decision was formally signed Nov. 5, 2025.
Despite the outcome of the state proceedings, Fritz alleges the city has never heard the grievance she filed challenging her termination.
Lawsuit seeks grievance hearing, unpaid PTO
The lawsuit also alleges the city refused to pay Fritz approximately $13,000 in accrued paid time off following her termination.
Fritz argues the unpaid PTO constitutes wages under the South Carolina Payment of Wages Act and seeks three times the amount allegedly withheld, plus costs and attorney’s fees.
That could amount to approximately $39,000 on the wage claim alone, not including the other damages Fritz is seeking in the lawsuit.
Fritz is also asking a judge to order the city to convene a formal grievance hearing.
The complaint cites South Carolina law stating that when a qualifying municipal employee files a timely grievance, the municipality must schedule the requested hearing and notify the employee and grievance committee within 10 days.
Fritz alleges she timely filed a grievance following her termination, but the city has never scheduled the hearing.
The lawsuit further alleges McDorman and Price worked together to harm Fritz through her demotion, termination and referrals to SLED and the Criminal Justice Academy. Fritz alleges the two were motivated by retaliation over her earlier internal complaint.
She also alleges McDorman and Price intentionally interfered with her employment relationship with the city by participating in her demotion and termination without justification.
Fritz is seeking damages for lost income and earning capacity, emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment and reputational harm. She is also seeking punitive damages where allowed, attorney’s fees and costs, pre-judgment interest and equitable relief that could include reinstatement or front pay.
She has requested a jury trial. The lawsuit does not specify an overall dollar amount being sought beyond the approximately $13,000 in disputed PTO and the potential treble damages associated with that claim.
The Island News has reached out to the City of Beaufort and Beaufort Police Department for comment and responses to questions about Fritz’s allegations, her termination, the subsequent state proceedings and the city’s handling of her grievance.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.