Two employees of Faulkner County's Office of Emergency Management filed a sexual harassment lawsuit Thursday after the county judge refused to fire the office's director despite advice from two attorneys who separately investigated the allegations for the county.
Julie Woodward and Mary Johnson filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Little Rock against the county, County Judge Jim Baker, County Administrator Tom Anderson and Emergency Management Director Shelia Bellott.
The plaintiffs are among four employees who have filed complaints with the county alleging sexual harassment by Bellott. Attorney Tom Mickel said the other two workers may sue later. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission notified both plaintiffs of their right to sue after they also filed complaints with that agency.
The county's civil attorney, David Hogue, first investigated the employees' complaints. He has said he advised Baker to fire Bellott but that Baker instead first chose to have her work from her home rather than in the Emergency Management Office with the four employees. Baker later assigned Bellott to work from an office in the county's old courthouse, about five miles from the office where the other employees still work. The lawsuit said Bellott now is allowed to communicate by phone with just one employee, Tyler Lachowsky, who relays information to the others.
Bellott has not been suspended or placed on leave since the complaints were filed.
The defendants' "complaints-handling procedure is a sham," the lawsuit said.
Hogue said he had not seen the lawsuit as of late Thursday afternoon and could not comment on it. He said he would seek a copy to give to the law firm that will represent the county and its officials.
The Quorum Court asked now-former Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland to conduct a second investigation of the sexual harassment allegations. Neither Hiland nor Baker released those findings, but the lawsuit said Hiland also recommended Bellott's dismissal. Hiland has since left that office and is the U.S. attorney in Little Rock.
Hiland also found that Bellott "acted punitively toward all the OEM employees, including [Woodward and Johnson], by requiring them to fill out forms that the County itself discouraged," the lawsuit said. A few weeks after the complaints were filed, Bellott told the employees to complete a form each day, documenting every detail of the day, including phone calls and emails made and received -- forms they had not been required to complete previously, the complaint said.
The lawsuit referred to Hogue and Hiland by their position titles, not by name.
In an email earlier this week before the lawsuit was filed, Hogue said Baker has no plans to bring Hiland's findings to the Quorum Court. The law provides that only the county judge can fire her. The Quorum Court can defund her position but can't fire her.
"Judge Baker's moving of Ms. Bellott stopped any harassment that was happening, to our knowledge," Hogue wrote. "Neither he nor [Human Resources] has had any complaints since that action."
Hogue said Baker "is still monitoring the situation, but given the absence of complaints since the move, he has had no reason to take further action.
The lawsuit said Bellott entered Woodward's office in late May to tell her about a phone call she'd had the previous night with a man.
"Bellott proceeded to tell [Woodward] that she was 'going to have sex with her date (using vulgar words) that coming night, and that ... Bellott would come into the OEM office the next day with the date's bodily fluids still inside her,'" the lawsuit said. Woodward asked Bellott to stop talking about the matter, but Bellott then "walked around the office openly and obviously smelling her fingers. [Woodward] asked Defendant Bellott to stop this activity as well. In response, Defendant Bellott laughed at [Woodward]."
The next day, Bellott told Johnson about waking up at her date's house, about how she "almost forgot her bra ... and that she had left her panties there," the lawsuit said.
Two other employees have observed Bellott use "obscene language" and have "heard inappropriate stories about Defendant Bellott's lack of sex since her divorce and her explanation of the purpose of a vibrator," the lawsuit said.
According to the lawsuit, Bellott, when interviewed by Hiland, didn't deny the conversation. Bellott's recollection included sexually graphic language that Bellott said she had used when she "teased" Woodward.
The plaintiffs have "endured unwanted sexual comments from Defendant Bellott for many years," the lawsuit said.
NW News on 10/21/2017