VIRGINIA BEACH -- In the autumn of 1998, as he recovered at home from a work-related ruptured disc, firefighter Joseph E. ``Ed'' Raiford Jr. suddenly became the target of a criminal investigation. 

Two private detectives spied on Raiford at his Ocean View house as he puttered about doing ordinary household tasks while drawing injury pay from the city. 

One videotaped him at his nearby business. Even Raiford's 11-year-old daughter came under surveillance. 

Eventually, the detectives turned over the videotape to prosecutors and police, who used it to charge Raiford with a felony. He was taken into custody and fingerprinted. 

Raiford, a Virginia Beach firefighter with a spotless record of service dating to 1985 and no criminal record, learned that his employer of more than 14 years - the city of Virginia Beach - had hired the private detectives and encouraged the police to press charges against him. 

City officials believed Raiford's injury was not serious enough to keep him from light duty with the fire department. And when they were unable to reach Raiford by telephone, they began an investigation, said Mark D. Stiles, a Virginia Beach senior city attorney. 

``The investigation showed that he could do light duty,'' Stiles said. ``A prosecutor decided we had sufficient evidence to support a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses.'' 

But what started as a nightmare for Raiford soon became a headache for the city. 

The Beach commonwealth's attorney's office dropped the criminal charge when another prosecutor scanned the case and determined that the evidence was weak. 

Raiford responded by filing a $4 million lawsuit against the city of Virginia Beach, saying officials had maliciously prosecuted him.