Bounty Hunters Triumph in Suit against Southwest

Airline officials told the two Richmond bounty hunters it was OK to bring their weapons aboard.

Then, they had the two arrested.

Now, an Arizona jury has told Southwest Airlines to pay Thomas Hudgins and Leroy DeVore a total of $9 million in damages.

"I was exonerated and got my story told," said Hudgins, who works for the Richmond Sheriff's Office. "But it took seven years."

DeVore, a private investigator in Richmond, was traveling in Arizona and could not be reached for comment.

Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said the airline was disappointed with the ruling and is reviewing its legal options.

Two years to the day before hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center towers, on Sept. 11, 1999, Hudgins and DeVore flew down to Arizona to bring in a fugitive they'd been seeking.

They checked with airline officials over the phone, at the ticket counter and at the jetway about their weapons, showing them papers that made clear they were not government officials, and were told they should bring the guns with them in their carry-on baggage, their lawyer, Richard Gerry, said.

But as the plane approached Phoenix, the captain radioed that he had two men with weapons on board, though adding that they had not threatened the flight, Gerry said.

Hudgins and DeVore were detained and held in jail for three days.

The two asked Southwest to let its employees testify that they'd allowed them to carry their weapons on board, but Southwest refused.

Federal officials dropped criminal charges against them five months later, when Southwest would not allow its employees to be interviewed, Gerry said.

The Arizona jury awarded each of the Richmonders $500,000 in compensatory damages, for the three days they were jailed, the five months they faced imprisonment and the five years following when federal prosecutors could have re-charged them with a crime.

In addition, the jury awarded both men $4 million in punitive damages.

"We wanted to say just because you're a huge corporation with lawyers, you can't just walk over people and get away with it," Gerry said.

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.