Judge denies motion to toss lawsuit

A circuit judge said no this week to an attorney’s request to dismiss his client as one of the defendants in a lawsuit filed in Oconee County, on behalf of a Hilton Head Island woman. Judge Lawton McIntosh of the 10th Circuit filed an order yesterday in the Common Pleas Court that keeps Benjamin Lee Hiott as a co-defendant in the case titled Debi Baker Brookshire against Community First Bank. In the order dismissing the arguments of Hiott’s lawyer, Daryl Hawkins, McIntosh considered Hiott’s claim that plaintiff Brookshire had failed to file her claim within the statue of limitations. Hiott is a former officer of Community First. The plaintiff’s side accuses Hiott of lying to Brookshire as part of a series of deceptions involving a $1.1 million dollar trust which Brookshire had entrusted to the bank and had given Hiott power of attorney.