A Chattooga County couple has been awarded $300,000 in a settlement against the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office over what has been called an illegal search, according to Summerville attorney Bobby Lee Cook.

Mark Gordon and Connie Gordon filed a civil suit against former Sheriff John Everett and Deputy Kandy Dodd in U.S. District Court in Rome stemming from a search warrant served in January 2011 at their home.

The settlement will be paid by the county’s insurance carrier, Cook said.

According to the lawsuit:

The Gordons were pawnshop owners being investigated for allegedly purchasing stolen goods. In the process of that investigation Dodd altered a search warrant after a judge approved the warrant and did approval for the updated document.

When the magistrate judge learned that deputies had searched the Gordon home, he asked if anything had been added to the search warrant. At that point, according to the lawsuit, Everett admitted to the judge that they added the Gordons’ home address.

The judge told Everett that there was nothing in the warrant that permitted the search of the residence and ordered that everything that was seized as a result of the second warrant had to be returned.

The Gordons filed suit in May 2011.

In early 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy, of Rome, ruled that search violated the Gordon’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Everett and Dodd sought immunity from the lawsuit. Their requests were denied by Murphy.

Everett was defeated by now Sheriff Mark Schrader in November.

Click here to read a previous story about the case.