A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed by a pastor and former Roanoke County School Board member against a local parent stemming from an altercation during a contentious public meeting in August 2023.
Thomas McCracken III, then pastor of CommUNITY Church in Salem, accused Tiffany Sandifer of damaging his reputation through multiple statements she made following a meeting during which community members and school board members debated the Roanoke County School Board’s policies around transgender students.
The meeting was one of several that summer that went on for hours as dozens of residents spoke about the board’s implementation of the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies on transgender students. One parent was arrested at that meeting and charged with disorderly conduct, but was later acquitted.
Now, the suit has been settled for $1, according to documents provided by the law firm representing McCracken, Williams & Stickler PLC. Those documents note that Sandifer paid McCracken $1 on April 10. Court documents also show the case was dismissed from Roanoke County Circuit Court on April 17. McCracken did not respond to a query sent through his lawyer.
Sandifer could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, but in an April 10 post on social media, she reaffirmed that she disagrees with McCracken’s “recitation of facts” and continues to “deny the allegations against [her] in the lawsuit.”
But she also called the core of the case “a misunderstanding” in the lengthy post.
The crux of the lawsuit was an incident between McCracken and Sandifer’s daughter, Keely Meadows, that occurred after that August 2023 school board meeting.
Sandifer and her two teenage children attended to show support for transgender students and raised concerns during the public comment period that students would be negatively impacted by the new state policies that the board was considering at the time.
Following the meeting, Meadows and McCracken engaged in a heated dispute that spilled into the parking lot.
In his initial court filing, McCracken outlined verbal threats that he said Sandifer and her child made at the meeting and noted threats allegedly posted on social media, along with a flyer that was distributed at his work. He also claimed that Sandifer’s daughter told him, “Don’t touch me,” and Sandifer said, “Don’t touch my daughter” during the meeting; McCracken denied having done so.
McCracken sought more than $2 million in damages from Sandifer and a second defendant, alleging that statements Sandifer made online about him and his church were untrue and malicious.
The initial filing in Roanoke County Circuit Court in October 2023 also named as a defendant Luke Priddy, who had said he saw McCracken touch Sandifer’s child.
Priddy, who at the time was a member of the Roanoke City Council, was never served with the complaint and was dropped from the suit in October 2024.
In a November 2023 letter to McCracken, provided to Cardinal News by McCracken’s attorney, Priddy apologized to McCracken for those comments. Priddy said he had looked at a video recording of the meeting and found he was mistaken.
An amended version of the lawsuit in December 2024 reduced the complaint to one count of defamation against Sandifer and sought only $750,000 in damages.
In her Facebook post last month, Sandifer said that after reviewing video footage of the 2023 meeting and searching her memory, “I am fine with stating that he did not touch my daughter’s shoulder that night, and it was a misunderstanding.”
“Much has been said about Dr. McCracken and I having different political beliefs, and I worry that the attention this case has garnered might turn it into something it is not,” she continued. “When I look at the case now, I think the core issue for Dr. McCracken is feeling misunderstood and not given grace. And while in the moment I was overwhelmed and trying to care for my child, there is no reason to withhold that grace now.”
