WASHINGTON – An 18-year-old Montgomery County man is suing the county and the estate of a man who masqueraded as a school psychologist for more than a decade.
Brandon Hall, of Rockville, Md., has filed a lawsuit claiming the Board of Education of Montgomery County hired and retained a fraudulent psychologist, Duane Donald Flemmer, who in addition to counseling Hall and his family in school, was instrumental in a contentious custody battle between Hall’s parents.
“Flemmer was a fraud and a charlatan,” says attorney Ronald Karp, who filed the suit on Hall’s behalf.
The suit claims intentional misrepresentation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, retention and supervision seeks compensatory and punitive damages against Flemmer’s estate and the county school board.
Flemmer committed suicide in July 2013.
Karp says during the entire time Flemmer worked for Montgomery County he used a false name, David Flemmer.
Karp says Flemmer lied to the state agency that regulates mental health professionals that he was a licensed psychologist, when his highest accreditation was actually that of a licensed clinical professional counselor.
Dana Tofig, public information officer for Montgomery County Public Schools, confirms to WTOP that Flemmer worked for the school system from 1998 through 2010.
However, Tofig says the school system hasn’t seen the lawsuit, and generally doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
According to the lawsuit, a judge in the custody case assigned Hall, who was 8 years old at the time, to undergo weekly therapy sessions with Flemmer.
Based on Flemmer’s testimony, the court removed Hall from his mother’s custody, and gave the boy to his father, according to the suit.
The suit claims Flemmer lied about his credentials in his school work and as an expert witness, so he could “create havoc in the life of Brandon, and secure another year of therapy for which he could continue to charge fees.”
Eventually, state mental health officials realized Flemmer was working as a school psychologist without a proper license.
According to a report from the Maryland Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists, filed as an exhibit in the suit, Flemmer had failed to renew his counseling license since 2009.
In 2012, the counselor board denied Flemmer’s re-application, saying he had forged documents, lied, and misrepresented his qualifications in earlier jobs.
According to a police report included in the lawsuit, Flemmer shot himself in July, 2013 while in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
Maryland online court records indicate Flemmer’s suicide came two days after a court ruling garnishing his home, because of $62,000 in unpaid child support.
In the lawsuit, Hall’s lawyer says his client “was wrongly deprived of the advice, aid, assistance, attention, care, comfort, companionship, counsel” of his mother because of Flemmer’s testimony in the custody case.
Karp says Hall “has a permanent distrust of adults and authority figures, and problems with confidence and self-esteem.”
In an email, Karp says he’s concerned others have been harmed by Flemmer.
“We don’t know how many other children and parents were
