A former Ironton Police officer fired in 2008 for falsifying a traffic ticket is losing her home to foreclosure, an outcome she blames on her alleged improper termination and the more than three-year legal battle against the city that remains ongoing.

During a foreclosure hearing Friday, Judge William Corzine, a retired judge from Chillicothe, granted a motion for default judgment for Liberty Federal Savings Bank against former police officer — and current city councilwoman — Beth Rist.

The ruling essentially means that her home will be foreclosed on, said Warren Morford, Rist’s attorney. The process could take up to six months.

“Look what I’ve lost over a $130 ticket,” Rist said Friday, later adding, “I have not had income in 907 days.”

She added that people from the community sent anonymous donations to pay her utilities for eight months. Last week, a stranger paid $8,000 toward her house payments, she said. The woman told Rist when she woke up Friday God told her to help, Rist said.

“People have been so kind,” she said.

As a councilwoman elected to lead the city, Rist sits in a unique position. The former officer said she is upset that the city has paid thousands of dollars in legal fees over the ticket that she maintains was her simply trying to give someone a break.

As of December, the city had spent more than $33,000 in legal fees in the matter.

Mayor Rich Blankenship was unable to be reached for comment but has always maintained that the city handled itself properly in light of Rist’s actions and is only defending itself from her legal actions.

“I think the misconception, from what I’m understanding, is that the city keeps this going and that’s not true at all,” Blankenship told The Tribune in December. “We filed one out of four court cases and were just defending ourselves, just as we would do in any other case.”

Rist has the opportunity to keep her house until it is sold through the sheriff’s office, Morford said.

Rist said she is hopeful she can get her job with the city back before that would happen. She also told the court that Ohio University is considering buying her house and letting her live there until she dies, when it will acquire the property, Morford said.

Morford, along with the Lawrence County Treasurer, is also a defendant in the civil action. The attorney has a second mortgage on the home in order to secure legal fees.

“The mortgage was $30,000 and she probably owes me more than that,” Morford said.

The former policewoman was fired in 2008 after admitting to writing a ticket to someone other than the actual driver. She pleaded guilty to falsifying a traffic ticket.

Rist filed a grievance protesting her termination.

An arbitrator determined that she had been fired without cause and ordered that she be reinstated to her position as a police officer.

After the city appealed the arbitrator’s decision in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court, Rist’s termination was reinstated.

In October, she appealed to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, which upheld her termination.

In December 2010, she appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. There has been no word yet on whether the high court will hear the case.

In a separate legal action, Rist filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Ironton and its police department in June 2010 in U.S. District Court.

In the lawsuit, the former police sergeant claimed she was fired because of her gender and in retaliation for her documented opposition to what she alleges was discriminatory treatment.

The lawsuit alleges that her termination and the city’s failure to reinstate her were motivated by a desire to discriminate against her for protesting a hostile work environment.

The case is still pending in the federal court.

In 2001, Rist, who was hired in 1996 as the department’s first female officer, successfully sued the city on grounds of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.