ST. LOUIS COUNTY — A police officer in St. Louis County said she was sexually harassed by supervisors and told to lose weight while she was pregnant, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Officer Amanda Signorino said after dating her supervisor, she was sexually harassed by him and his colleagues, including via a pornographic video on Facebook and being told to lose 13 pounds while she was six months pregnant.
Lt. Jeff Hoots and other male employees subjected Signorino to “continuous and unreciprocated sexual harassment, intimidation, bullying, practical jokes and advances,” according to the suit.
“I have been sexually assaulted, harassed and discriminated against based on my gender,” she wrote in the letter submitted to the court along with the lawsuit. “After reporting the discrimination, I was retaliated against, transferred, and demoted.”
People are also reading…
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, names St. Louis County and Hoots as defendants.
Signorino joined the department in December 2015. She and Hoots dated on and off for years, she said, even though their relationship was against department policy. She claims Hoots denied their relationship to his superiors.
The two broke up in January 2017, and he was transferred to a different department. Two years later, the suit said, another lieutenant sent her pornography on Facebook.
Signorino said a sergeant filed a complaint with the department on her behalf. She was called in a few days later for an interview about it but was not allowed to bring her union representative “even though that is protocol.”
“I tried to leave the interview, but [the sergeant] ordered me to sit at his desk,” she said in the lawsuit. “I gathered my courage and showed [the sergeant] the entire Facebook thread between [the sergeant] and me, including the porn video.”
Command staff tried to convince her she was wrong about what happened with the lieutenant, and she was eventually transferred to another precinct.
She said she thrived in that precinct, both professionally and personally, for around two years, according to the suit.
But then Hoots was transferred to the same precinct — because of a separate sexual harassment complaint, according to the suit — and Signorino was transferred back out. She was sent to a precinct where she worked under the same people who investigated the pornography incident, suffered an income loss and worked the midnight shift, which made finding child care difficult. She unsuccessfully sought a transfer from that precinct.
Then, at the end of December, Signorino said she had a semi-annual evaluation where a lieutenant told her she needed to lose 13 pounds because she was overweight. She was six months pregnant at the time.
Signorino’s lawyers did not immediately comment on the case when reached by email. She is seeking an unspecified amount of damages in excess of $25,000.
Spokesman Doug Moore said the county does not comment on pending litigation.
Hoots did not immediately return a call for comment.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page discusses budget deficit on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.
"lose" - Google News
January 28, 2023 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/jYVx5p8
Lawsuit: St. Louis County officer was sexually harassed, told to lose weight while pregnant - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"lose" - Google News
https://ift.tt/m3rvxjF https://ift.tt/zBTiu74
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Lawsuit: St. Louis County officer was sexually harassed, told to lose weight while pregnant - St. Louis Post-Dispatch"
Post a Comment