Polk County leaders have confirmed that a leader in the civil division of the County Attorney’s Office has resigned just weeks before a high-stakes defamation trial involving former county HR chief Jim Nahas.
Ralph Marasco Jr., who worked for the county attorney’s office for more than 30 years and was bureau chief of the county attorney’s civil division, resigned this month and took another job, Supervisors Angela Connolly and Tom Hockensmith said.
Connolly, who applauded Marasco’s service, said she never got to say goodbye.
Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald (right) signs election certification paperwork while talking with Polk County Attorney First Assistant Ralph Marasco at the Polk County Administration Building on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Des Moines.
More: Bad blood, tangled ties raise conflict-of-interest issues in Polk County legal cases
Marasco, 59, was deeply involved in several civil lawsuits pending against Polk County and the supervisors, including the one filed in 2021 by Nahas that is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 8 in Dallas County. Marasco could not be reached for comment Wednesday, Aug. 27.
Supervisor Mark Holm said he was told Marasco took a job as a legal adviser to the Iowa Utilities Board. Holm said he didn’t always agree with Marasco, but that Marasco had a lot of valuable historical knowledge about the county’s legal affairs.
Holm said he doesn’t believe Marasco was pressured to leave. But Marasco’s decision followed several mean-spirited, embarrassing and costly rifts within county government going back to at least to 2020. Those rifts grew nastier after Nahas filed his lawsuit in September 2021 alleging libel, extortion and wrongful termination as well as violations of Iowa’s open meetings and records laws.
Nahas claimed he was forced to resign as part of a political vendetta against now Supervisors Chair Matt McCoy, then an ally. His lawsuit named as defendants the county’s administrator at the time, John Norris, as well as Connolly and Hockensmith, and now-former Supervisors Robert Brownell and Steve Van Oort.
His attorney Nick Mauro has argued Nahas worked seven years as human resources director and consistently had positive reviews until supervisors hired Norris in 2020. Within a month, he said, Nahas was fired.
Lawyers in the civil division accused Nahas of incompetence and letting a second job as a high school coach get in the way of his county work. But Mauro has argued those allegations only surfaced after Nahas refused to implicate McCoy in an investigation into allegations made by Deputy County Administrator Sarah Boese.
No settlement before Nahas trial
Polk County District 4 Supervisor Tom Hockensmith speaks during a Polk County Board of Supervisors meeting at Polk County Administration Building on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Des Moines.
Hockensmith also alleged on Wednesday that he was told by Connolly that mediation efforts this week to settle the Nahas case before trial broke down. He said Connolly told him that was because McCoy, Holm and Altringer, who have had a majority-vote alliance on the five-member board, also wanted resolve out of court Boese’s separate 2022 sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit against the county and supervisors.
Holm said there was a mediation session he didn’t attend, but that the talks were confidential. He said he and Altringer ran for the board last year on “trying to make these lawsuits go away.”
“We don’t want to go to trial,” he said. “We were hoping to make a deal.”
Holm said he doesn’t think it’s helpful for many of the disputes happening among county leaders to play out in the Des Moines Register, and he wants the county to move forward.
Hockensmith also said County Administrator Frank Marasco, not a relative of Ralph Marasco, took over leadership this week of the county’s human resources department, which has lost three leaders since McCoy, Holm and Altringer moved to force Norris’ resignation during an explosive Jan. 3 run-in at the county administration building. Norris agreed to step down in March and received more than $516,000 in compensation under a settlement.
“It’s chaos,” said Hockensmith, whose own expressions of anger that day at McCoy and Holm put him at legal risk. “All the department heads were afraid after Norris was fired.”
Holm said there are personnel issues wrapped up in the loss of leadership in human resources that he couldn’t comment on. The county, he said, increases its legal exposure to the county when leaders comment on such sensitive matters.
Polk County Supervisors Matt McCoy, left, and Mark Holm prepare for a Polk County Board of Supervisors meeting at the Polk County Administration Building on July 29, 2025, in Des Moines.
Boese lodged new retaliation allegations this year against the county after being skipped over by supervisors as Norris’s interim replacement. Instead, McCoy, Altringer and Holm, in one of many 3-2 votes this year, selected Frank Marasco, then chief administrator in the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, to replace Norris.
McCoy and Altringer did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
As the various civil cases pending against the county have played out, several lawyers in County Attorney Kimberly Graham’s office, including Ralph Marasco, faced allegations of conflicts of interest on several fronts: Marasco led the investigation into Nahas that resulted in his firing and ultimately resulted in McCoy bringing his own lawsuit against the county. That case eventually ended in a settlement. He also sat in on closed supervisors meetings that involved discussions about Nahas, McCoy, Boese and Norris.
He and attorneys in his office, or retained by the county, including Julie Bussanmas and Mike Galloway, were supposed to be called as witnesses in the civil cases involving Nahas next month. That forced the county to hire outside lawyers.
Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at lrood@registermedia.com, at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Top civil attorney leaves Polk County, as does another HR chief