ST. LOUIS (AP) – The owners of a Franklin County treatment facility have filed a lawsuit against the county and others alleging that some participants in drug court were forced to work as informants for police, causing them to fail drug tests and the program.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the lawsuit was filed Aug. 1 in district court. Kenneth Allen Jr. and Jan Allen say in the lawsuit that their company, Meramec Recovery Center Inc., lost its contract after they complained.

Meramec became the drug treatment provider for the county’s drug court in 2000. The company’s contract ended in September 2013.

Sheriff’s Lt. Jason Grellner was named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit. Grellner says the allegation of using drug court participants as informants is “100 percent incorrect.”