WA: prosecutor's toxic workplace

From the Olympian:

Plaintiffs set scene of sex-bias allegations

Three female ex-­employees of the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney's Office were "rising stars" knocked off the fast track after suing the county, their lawyer said Tuesday. "They hurt from the inside," Tacoma attorney J. Richard Creatura said during the first day of their sexual harassment trial...

Former Thurston County deputy prosecuting attorneys Audrey Broyles, Vonda Sargent and Susan Sackett-DanPullo were retaliated against for making claims of alleged sexual bias and for complaining of a hostile workplace where they were regularly humiliated with off-color jokes and lewd language, Creatura said.

But Seattle attorney Mike Patterson, representing Thurston County, said he will show the jury... that Broyles and the others were as loose-tongued as their bosses, were top players in office "turf wars" and generated the sexual harassment claim later, only on the advice of their lawyers...

Creatura and Patterson spoke during opening arguments Tuesday in the five-year-old case that targets the administration of Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Ed Holm. Holm... is not named as a defendant but is accused of sex bias in doling out pay raises, plum assignments and responsibilities and of using inappropriate sexual language...

In his two-hour opening statement Tuesday, Creatura... gave an elaborate history of the prosecutor's office and attempted to show a work culture spinning out of control.

The three women filed suit only after no one took them seriously when they complained about intimidation and threats from Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jack Jones, Creatura said. Among other complaints, the women said they were afraid of Jones - then a large man who allegedly screamed at staff, threw files on the floor and carried a gun that he cleaned at his desk in front of them.

The women met with Holm in November 2000 to ask him to do something about Jones, who they said was a bully. "They were waving a huge red flag to Holm, but nothing was done," Creatura said. "There was no investigation, nothing..."

Creatura asserted that Holm and his male supervisors made sexual comments and told off-color jokes that caused the women to feel humiliated. That included suggesting a woman employee should "give me a hand in the men's room" or that "I would like to take you home if I didn't have a wife." Other comments were about women's breasts or other parts of their appearances, with one woman called a "fiery redhead," or "a long drink of water."

"It was a male-dominated culture that didn't support women," Creatura said...

Any resemblance between this Thurston County prosecutor story and that other story is surely coincidental.

Update: day two - Bias trial tests woman's character