Ex-youth detention worker was target of sex contest, pimped out by superior: lawsuit
A former Sedgwick County Youth Detention Facility employee says her work environment became hostile after she was the subject of a humiliating sex game among her supervisors to see who could bed her first.
The woman says in a federal lawsuit filed last week that she was discriminated against and repeatedly sexually harassed because she is female and suffered retaliation after she complained. She is suing the Sedgwick County Board of Commissioners over treatment she says she endured while working as a corrections officer at the youth facility, 700 S. Hydraulic in Wichita, from July 2018 until she quit on Oct. 6, 2019.
It is The Eagle’s policy to not name alleged victims of sexual assault and harassment without their consent.
The Youth Detention Facility is operated by Sedgwick County government, which declined to comment on the lawsuit through its spokeswoman, Kate Flavin.
“We are aware of the case and it is our practice to not discuss ongoing litigation with the public,” she said by email.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 4, demands an unspecified amount of money including punitive damages and seeks a permanent injunction barring the county and its employees “from engaging in any employment practice which discriminates on the basis of sex and retaliation.” It also asks for a jury trial.
The woman filed a discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission — or EEOC — on May 23. She received a letter notifying her of her right to sue the county on Sept. 8.
According to the lawsuit, the woman was sexually harassed by three facility supervisors, including two with whom she had sexual contact and another whom she contends “pimped me out.” After she started the job, she said she repeatedly had sex with one who offered her rides to the youth detention facility. The first encounter, which was consensual but unplanned, started when she mentioned her interest in studying massage therapy and the supervisor “asked her for a massage in her apartment before giving her the ride to work,” the lawsuit says.
The relationship ended when she “learned that he was married or engaged” and “she rebuffed him and got rides from a different individual.”
Several months later, in January of 2019, she discovered that he “had sex with her to win a contest” held among the male supervisors “to see who could have sex with ... (her) first,” the lawsuit says.
Another supervisor confronted her about a sexual encounter with a co-worker whom the woman contends raped her following an employee Christmas party in 2018. The woman did not report the rape at work or to the police “because she knew how women were demonized when making a rape charge,” the lawsuit says.
She says it appeared the supervisor had a romantic interest in the co-worker, so the woman “made clear that the sex was non-consensual” but avoided calling it rape “because she knew she would be demonized for making an allegation against a popular employee.”
The supervisor told several people that the woman “was making a false rape accusation.” She also says that supervisor suggested she maintain a sexual relationship with a superior — which she did — “to get perks and better treatment at work.” At least one co-worker stopped criticizing her “as long as she was having sex with the boss,” the lawsuit says.
Some of the sexual encounters happened in the work area of the superior, who also convinced her to perform oral sex on another co-worker at least once, the lawsuit says. The superior “stood as the lookout person to make sure no one saw them,” according to the lawsuit.
She says she was used “as a ‘sex object’ to be passed around from one male supervisor to another” and that one supervisor “‘pimped me out’” to the others.
The woman says in the lawsuit that the alleged treatment coupled with a friend’s death led her to attempt suicide after work in February 2019. She says she was reprimanded and forced to forgo leave for a few months for taking a week off of work after she was released from the hospital because her mother reported her absence for her.
She says the director of the youth facility dismissed her complaints about the hostile work environment caused by her rape allegation.
She also says in the lawsuit that she was retaliated against “for not continuing to have sex” with one of her superiors, including being forced to work more overtime than other employees and receiving inconvenient overtime schedules.
The facility director also ignored complaints about unequal treatment and did nothing to “relieve her from the retaliation,” according to the lawsuit.
She was asked to return to work after she quit on Oct. 6, 2019, but refused because “no reasonable woman in her situation would return to such a hostile work environment,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit alleges equal protection violations, a hostile work environment caused by “unwelcome offensive conduct from her co-workers and supervisors,” sexual discrimination, retaliation and constructive discharge contending her superiors “acted with the intent of forcing ... (her) to quit.”
