Sexual misconduct in Key West: oxymoron or just moronic? by gimleteye

It's Sunday. I'm going to take a break from the arithmetic of our current national politics: Leonard Pitts and Carl Hiaissen do a fine job in the Herald today. Let's see what is going on in the Florida Keys where a trial is set to begin this Monday at 1 PM at the Key West federal courthouse involving sexual misconduct by the county mayor. That should get our readers to click "read more".

These factual allegations are lifted verbatim out of the initial complaint filed by Celeste Bruno in the Monroe County Circuit Court against Monroe County. The case then was removed by Monroe County to the U.S. District Court, because part of the allegations concern violations of federal laws. The Complaint then was amended, dropping all but the first two counts. The factual allegations of misconduct by Mayor Sonny McCoy remained the same.

The allegations come off as though they were a bad episode of "Mad Men", the early 1960's drama on AMC that snagged a bunch of Emmy's. I am wondering why the power structure is so determined to protect McCoy; my guess is that it has something to do with McCoy's secure support for the Growth Machine in the Keys.

General Allegations

9. The Mayor hired Bruno as his executive assistant February 9, 2005 following an interview during which he never asked about her qualifications nor sought to see her resume, but commented, “Well, you’re certainly pretty enough.”

10. The Mayor’s reputation at the time within Monroe County government for inappropriately interacting with female employees was such that when Bruno went to the county administrator’s office to complete the paper work to accept the job, the county administrator’s administrative assistant, Connie Cyr, stated that she had been approached to take the job, but that she would not do so - “Not with his reputation” - and Debbie Fredericks, then a Senior Administrative Assistant and subsequently Deputy County Administrator, warned Bruno, ‘If he starts, you have to be really stern.”

11. Although Bruno accepted the job, thinking that The Mayor could not possibly behave as badly towards women as Cyr and Fredericks had suggested, she immediately learned otherwise.

12. For example, The Mayor regularly told - and re-told - the following stories, notwithstanding the fact that Bruno told him the first time that either she did not need to hear such stories or that it was “more information that I wanted,” and would tell him during beginning-to-end encore recitations, “You’ve told me that this already. I don’t need to hear this again”:

a. The Mayor had an older lover when he had studied in Paris, France, who along with another woman treated The Mayor to a
menage a trois on the eve of his leaving, the frequency and intensity of the sex that night being such that he suffered a “runny” penis and visited a physician when he got back to the United States;

b. The Mayor - when he was in China on an architectural/cultural trip with former President George H. W. Bush - had the sexual services of a beautiful Chinese girl “Dah ling,” whose name he could remember because it sounded just like “darling”;

c. The Mayor broke off an affair with a neighbor’s wife because he had nightmares about looking up and seeing the man with a sad look on his face as he watched The Mayor and his wife have sex;

d. When The Mayor made his, 90-mile, one-water-ski trip to Cuba - a claim-to-fame he has memorialized with a wall of photographs in his office - there were women on the ski boat whose sole function was to “keep me up” by periodically appearing at the stern and removing an article of clothing;

e. The Mayor developed an aversion to overweight women while working as a cargo pilot when one such women initiated sex with him after he had passed out drunk;

f. The Mayor officiated at a wedding as Key West mayor, and then had sex with the bride after the groom got too drunk at the reception; and

g. The Mayor had sex with Cuban prostitutes when doing architectural work in Cuba.

13. Following virtually every one of the tellings (or re-tellings) of one of these stories, The Mayor approached Bruno and said, essentially, “You’ll tell me if I say something that bothers you, right?,” to which Bruno inevitably responded, ‘I always have told you that I did not want to hear your stories and I will keep on telling you,” to which The Mayor would inevitably reply ‘I joke around more with you than with Kathy [Peters, his former executive assistant], because you can take it.”

14. The stories and the subsequent exchange occurred virtually daily throughout Bruno’s employment as The Mayor’s executive assistant.

15. The Mayor after four or five months escalated the unwelcome sexual advances by asking Bruno on several occasions if she were attracted to him. When she told him that his inquiry was inappropriate and refused to answer it, he told her that he was attracted to her and asked again why she would not answer his question.

16. The Mayor’s other sexually inappropriate remarks included, but were not limited to, the following:

a, summoning Bruno from her desk to his office merely to tell her, “You’re cute”;
b. frequently staring at her buttocks and commenting with a mock Spanish accent, “Que fondillo!” - which translates to “nice bottom”;
c. telling her, as she stood next to where he was sitting reviewing a document she had typed, ‘I want to slap your behind”;
d. asking her on another occasion what color underwear she
had on;
e. inquiring about her sex life with her husband;
f. telling her - after he returned from a visit to a urologist, who, he shared, had “put his finger up my buttr’ - that it was amazing how
a man his age could have such a high semen count;
g. talking about how ‘Women shouldn’t have worries - it
ruins their looks.”

17. The Mayor affected inappropriately sexual body language with Bruno, including learning over her desk, getting close to her and rubbing his chest through his unbuttoned shirt - after ordering her to arrange the furniture, including a printer and a scanner, in such a way as to allow him easier access to the area behind Bruno’s desk than he had enjoyed after his
former assistant, Peters, arranged the furniture to effectively barricade herself from him.

18. The Mayor also attempted to force upon Bruno inappropriately large (and unwelcome) gifts. For example, he:

a. ordered her a refrigerator to be put on his bill when hers broke - which she called and cancelled;
b. offered to have a friend paint her house - which she declined; and
c. instructed his daughter to order Bruno an MP3 player - which Bruno rejected by calling The Mayor’s daughter to stop the order.

19. The attempted giving of unwelcome gifts to Bruno was perceived by Bruno at worst as a thinly disguised and unsuccessful attempt to get her to prostitute herself or, at best, a “peace offering” indicating his understanding of how offensive and troubling his sexually explicit conduct was to her. Additionally, the attempted gift-giving was The Mayor’s modus operandi, as demonstrated by the way he also treated his immediately previous assistant, Kathy Peters:
a. whom he got onto a list for affordable housing at a condominium of which he was the architect;
b. whose $200,000 mortgage he attempted to guarantee; and
c. for whom he ordered a full set of dishes that Peters left behind in the office when she transferred to the County Attorney’s office.
20. Following the receipt March 3, 2005 of an anonymous letter suggesting that Peters had left The Mayor’s employ because she felt sexually harassed, The Mayor told Bruno daily that “I don’t know what I did to her,” that ‘I just tried to help her,” and that Peters had been “very emotional” and would cry in the office.

21. The Mayor repeatedly told Bruno that he could not have sexually harassed Peters - whom he called “my little Conch girl,” a reference to natives of the Florida Keys, and whose sexual history he detailed to Bruno without Bruno’s inquiring or inviting him to do so - because he had never touched her.

22. Following Bruno’s repeated rejections of The Mayor’s advances, The Mayor became hostile towards her, e.g.:
a. demeaning her work;
b. asking her repeatedly if she knew what various “big” words
(e.g., “tautologist”) meant and demanding that she tell him;
c. displaying anger when the office received an e-mail from
the Tourist Development Council and Chamber of Commerce congratulating “whoever wrote” a letter to the governor about windstorm insurance that Bruno had written but that had gone out over The Mayor’s signature;
d. refusing to listen to anything that she had to say about windstorm insurance, even though Monroe County’s state representative had suggested in a phone conference with The Mayor and Bruno that The Mayor let Bruno brief him on the issue because The Mayor needed to know something about it;
e. flying into a screaming rage at Bruno because she had stapled a landscape-format attachment to a portrait-format letter differently than The Mayor had thought it should be stapled; and
f. laughing at Bruno’s work product in front of County Attorney Suzanne Hutton and telling her “You’re cute” as Bruno attempted to present to him and explain a letter she had drafted about windstorm insurance.

23. Bruno walked out of The Mayor’s office after the incident described in 7 22(f), refusing to return.

24. She used vacation time and worked in the office of the County Administrator for a while, seeking other employment with Monroe County.

25. The Mayor’s actions towards Bruno:
a. were based:
i. on Bruno’s gender; or
ii. on Bruno’s having opposed The Mayor’s unwelcome sexual advances and constant, uninvited discussion of sexual matters by repeatedly refusing those advances and telling him that she did not want to hear those kinds of stories;
b. were so serious or pervasive as to permeate Bruno’s workplace to the point that it altered the terms and conditions of her
employment by requiring her to work in a discriminatorily hostile or abusive environment;
c, would have offended any reasonable woman;
d. did offend Bruno - to the point that it caused her to seek professional help for the anxiety and depression The Mayor’s behavior caused;
e. as to the actions more specifically alleged in 1 22, were the type of actions that could well dissuade a reasonable worker from opposing The Mayor’s sexual advances and sexual comments.
f. were, upon information and belief, similar to his actions towards former assistants, which actions were known to Monroe County officials to the extent that Tom Wille, the county administrator, told Bruno when she said that she no longer wished to work for The Mayor that he was surprised that she had lasted as long as she did in The Mayor’s office and Debbie Fredericks, the deputy county administrator, asked “Was it hands or words?,” adding, “We warned you.”

26. Monroe County at all times material failed to exercise reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior by The Mayor in that it:
a. knew of The Mayor’s sexual harassment of other women,
but had done nothing to stop it or to counsel The Mayor about repeating it;
b. had in place a sexual harassment policy that only forbade harassment or retaliation by employees up through the level of division director and department head, but did not forbid either harassment or retaliation by members of the Board of County Commissioners; and
c, provided sexual harassment training to employees, but not to members of the Board of County Commissioners.

27. Immediately upon leaving The Mayor’s employ, Bruno began seeking treatment for depression and anxiety.

28. Soon thereafter, Bruno went to work as an assistant to Commissioner Spehar, whose office was in the same Key West complex as The Mayor’s.

29. Bruno’s job with Spehar paid 4 per cent less than her position as executive assistant to the mayor pursuant to General Policy 4.13 of the Monroe County Personnel Policies and Procedures.

30. Notwithstanding general knowledge of the popularity of The Mayor - a third-generation “Conch” and former five-term mayor of the City of Key West prior to being elected to the County Commission - Monroe County leaked to the press on or about November 10, 2006 word that the EEOC had notified Monroe County October 17 of Bruno’s sexual-harassment
and retaliation Charge of Discrimination.

31. Following the news leak and the ensuing November 11 coverage, Milo John Reese, a mentally ill ex-convict, visited Spehar’s office November 13 to leave a handwritten note reading: Sonny, Regarding the person who says you harassed, I called my attorney. She went on her computer. She’s got something on this guy. Cellest (sic) Higgins, # 305-536-6900. Thanks,
John Reese

32. Commissioner Spehar, meanwhile, told Bruno several times subsequent to the news leak that the sentiment she was encountering whenever she went to an official meeting was that, ‘We’ve got to protect Sonny.”

33. Reese returned to Bruno’s office November 16, identifying himself as a friend of The Mayor’s who wanted to help him with Bruno’s complaint, at which point Bruno telephoned County Attorney Suzanne Hutton and Bob Shillinger, an assistant county attorney, who spoke with Reese after Bruno left the room.

34. When Bruno returned, Hutton and Shillinger told Bruno that each desk had a panic button and told her that were Reese to return, she could push it and sheriff’s deputies from the nearby courthouse would rush over.

35. Reese the following day left another note, this one on the back of a blank restaurant check: “Perjury = 3 years in jail. How do you like me now. Have a nice day. John Reese, FBI.”

36. City of Key West Police Department officers issued trespass warnings to Reese November 17 for both Commissioner Spehar’s office and Bruno’s home.

37. Reese nonetheless returned to Commissioner Spehar’s office November 30, telling Bruno - who told Reese to leave as she pushed the panic button and dialed 911 - that “I go next door to Sonny’s all the time and he never told me I couldn’t come here.”

38. While the City of Key West police arrived in response to the 911 call, taking Reese into custody for trespass after warning, no sheriff’s deputy responded to the panic button.

39. Bruno, fearing that Monroe County could not protect her, left work that day and went to her psychotherapist, Marilyn E. Berner, a licensed clinical social worker, who advised her not to return to work - as Spehar’s assistant or in any capacity - because of the overwhelming fear Bruno had developed concerning Monroe County’s failure to protect her.

40. Monroe County shortly thereafter terminated Bruno for job abandonment.