Update at 3:20 p.m.: Revised to include comment from the Texas Democratic Party.

AUSTIN — A former Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission employee is suing the agency for improperly firing him, claiming he was told to stop investigating violations at a bar the lawsuit says a state senator partly owned.

Marcus Stokke, a former enforcement sergeant for 24 northeast Texas counties, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Travis County state district court, the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday.

The lawsuit claims Stokke was fired after reporting Sen. Joan Huffman's "public corruption and obstruction of justice," as well as TABC employees' "obstruction of justice and falsification of government documents" to a federal prosecutor, an FBI agent and a TABC investigator. Stokke reported the violations of federal law in May 2017.

In the lawsuit, TABC is accused of bowing to Huffman's influence and ordering Stokke to drop his investigation of Longview bar Graham Central Station, which the suit claims was partly owned by Huffman and her husband. According to Yelp, the bar has closed, and its phone number is now connected to two other businesses that have taken over the bar's location.

The Statesman reported that Huffman's husband still held a financial interest in the land formerly occupied by Graham Central Station, according to her 2017 personal financial statement.

The lawsuit states that TABC employees told Stokke "to dismiss, and delete from the commission's records ... digital or paper documentation of the suspected violations." The violations included accusations that alcohol was served to a customer who raped a female customer and that the bar failed to tell regulators about "multiple aggravated breaches of the peace."

Huffman, a Houston Republican, has been a senator since 2008 and is chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee. She was recently appointed vice chair of a new Senate Select Committee studying violence in schools and school safety.

"These claims are false and have no merit, and are not deserving of any further comment," Huffman said in a prepared statement.

As Vice Chair of the new Senate Select Committee, I'll be working to build a consensus bill regarding extreme risk protection orders (red flag laws) that keeps firearms out of the hands of dangerous individuals, with due process protections and no #2A violations. #txlege pic.twitter.com/9k6BAdefUO — Joan Huffman (@joanhuffman) May 31, 2018

Houston lawyer Rita Lucido, the Democratic candidate facing Huffman in the general election, called on the Texas Rangers to investigate the allegations raised in the lawsuit. Crystal Perkins, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, also asked for an investigation.

"No one is above the law, not Donald Trump, not Ken Paxton, and not Senator Joan Huffman," Perkins said in a prepared statement. "Texans deserve leaders who are looking out for them, not engaging in greed and corruption to protect billionaire donors or their own pocketbooks."

Stokke is seeking at least $200,000 in damages and wants to go back to his job at TABC. Stokke's Dallas-based lawyer, Robert Goodman Jr., told the Statesman his client wants the court to remove the "black mark" left on his record from being fired.

A TABC spokesman said the agency could not comment on pending litigation.