A former Mercer County fiscal director who filed a lawsuit claiming employees at the courthouse conspired to get him fired has dropped Mercer County and the county commissioners from the suit.

In filings Tuesday, Jeff Swartzbeck of Mercer amended his lawsuit, removing from the list of defendants county Commissioners Cloyd E. Brenneman and Olivia M. Lazor, the county and the board of commissioners and former county Commissioner Brian W. Shipley.

Those who remain named in the lawsuit are: Kim Deniker, county law librarian; Onalee Godfrey, former administrative assistant to Shipley; Roberta Leonard, former grants and allocations director; and Suzanne Hockenberry, former management information systems director.

In October, Swartzbeck sued, claiming the employees conspired against him with false claims of sexual harassment and seminar fraud. The goal of their conspiracy, Swartzbeck alleges, was to get him fired.

Swartzbeck resigned Oct. 11, 2001, after being suspended with pay for a month and suspended without pay for a week.

In previous court filings, Ms. Deniker, Ms. Godfrey, Ms. Leonard and Ms. Hockenberry had asked for the suit to be dismissed because Swartzbeck did not submit evidence they published statements about him and listed only possible people who may have been told about the sexual harassment.

In response to their objections, Swartzbeck's attorney filed an amended complaint Tuesday, that gives specific dates and names of alleged conversations where the women supposedly told fellow workers that Swartzbeck had sexually harassed them.

The new filing reads like a breakdown of the courthouse-gossip circuit as it traces "he said, she said," conversations passed through three, sometimes four people.

It gives specific dates when the conversations allegedly took place, gives the locations of the conversations, and lists who allegedly heard the claims.

In February 2002, The Herald reported the county paid $57,000 to the four women to settle their claims they had been sexually harassed while working at the courthouse.

The court documents did not say why the county and commissioners had been dropped from the suit.

Phone messages left for Mrs. Lazor's and Brenneman's attorney, Vicki Beatty of Campbell, Durrent and Beatty of Pittsburgh, were not returned.

A secretary for Neal Sanders, the Butler attorney who represents Swartzbeck, said the lawyer had no comment.