By James Windell
The City of South Haven responded to Pat Carlotto’s employment lawsuit alleging discrimination. The lawsuit was filed in late November 2025 in Federal District Court.
The formal answer to the initial suit was filed with the Court on December 26, 2025, and to make a long story short, the City denied all allegations in Carlotto’s suit.
Carlotto, a 25-year veteran of the South Haven Police Department, was appointed interim police chief after Chief Natalie Thompson retired in September 2024. He held the role until Kevin Swope was hired in January 2025. After Chief Swope resigned just one month into his tenure, Carlotto was again named interim chief. He stepped in to lead the department while the City resumed its search for a permanent replacement.
He served in that role until Dennis Honholt began serving as Chief on April 1, 2025. Honholt resigned a month later, but no interim police chief was named immediately. Sgt. Adam DeBoer was appointed interim chief near the end of April 2025 and was in that position until recently being promoted to Chief.
In his suit, Carlotto states that he has qualifications, credentials, and experience that far exceeded those of the persons the City ended up hiring as its chief of police and that the reason he was not selected as Chief of the South Haven Police Department was because of retaliation and discriminatory treatment.
Representing the City and responding to the suit was Andrew J. Brege, an attorney in the Farmington Hills-based law firm of Rosati Schultz Joppich & Amtsbuechler PC.
Several specific responses to allegations stand out as important. For instance, there was this charge by Carlotto: “Defendant further admitted that it would not hire Carlotto for the chief of police position because of his Title VII litigation participation and his opposition to Defendant’s discrimination and retaliation. Defendant admitted that it would not hire Carlotto as chief of police because it felt that he had ‘some trust issues’ and ‘too much baggage.’” The response to that was “Denied in the manner and form alleged as untrue.”
Another allegation was: “Carlotto’s participation in the Pauly litigation and his public opposition for the way she had been discriminated against and retaliated against admittedly ‘did not sit well’ with Defendant.” The City’s answer was simply: “Denied in the manner and form alleged as untrue.”
In 2022, Carlotto was a witness in a discrimination lawsuit filed by Officer Michaela Pauly against the City and then-police chief Natalie Thompson. Carlotto claims that because he supported Pauly’s case, city officials later retaliated against him.
A further allegation by Carlotto was that “Carlotto also had qualifications, credentials, and experience that far exceeded the persons Defendant hired as its chief of police,” to which the City responded: “Denied in the manner and form alleged as untrue.”
Carlotto also alleged that the City refused to permanently appoint him to the chief of police position despite his “vastly superior qualifications, credentials, and experience.” The City answered this with: “Admitted only that Defendant did not appoint Plaintiff as chief of police.”
Finally, Carlotto claims in his suit that the City never provided him with a specific reason why it had refused to hire him for the chief of police position other than to state that it has “some trust issues” with him. Similar to other answers, the City’s response to that was: “Denied in the manner and form alleged as untrue.”
The City’s responses ask the Court to dismiss the claim brought against them “and to award such costs, including a reasonable attorney fee, as may be permitted by law.” The document submitted by Brege to the Court also states that it is the City’s belief that the Plaintiff (Pat Carlotto) is not entitled to a trial, “as no issue presented creates any genuine issue that requires submission to a jury.”
Should the Court move the case along, the next step would be a discovery phase in which depositions may be taken of Carlotto and city officials, and either side might ask for documents, such as emails, hiring records, and internal communications about the police chief search, that may be relevant to the case.
