Essex County Sheriff Dept. employee files sexual harassment suit
By Dan O’Brien/The Daily Item SALEM — An employee of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in Salem Superior Court Wednesday against the department alleging officials didn’t properly investigate her complaints of being harassed by a male coworker when she worked at the Middleton Jail over a five-year period.
Kelly Pickering, of Merrimac, who worked as a corrections officer, is suing the sheriff’s department after her ex-boyfriend and coworker, Steven Nowicki, allegedly harassed her since 2002 when she broke off their relationship, according to court documents.
The lawsuit also names Sheriff Frank G. Cousins and co-worker Michael Roche as defendants for knowing about the harassment and allegedly doing nothing about it.
A phone call to Cousins’ spokesperson was not immediately returned Wednesday.
Pickering’s lawsuit says that as a result of Nowicki’s sexual and verbal harassment against her, she was forced to change her home phone number once, her Sheriff’s Department-issued pager number three times, her cell phone number twice, her e-mail address once and her home mailing address twice.
Pickering and Nowicki, who both hold the rank of Captain, began dating in September 2000 when they were co-workers at the Middleton Correctional Facility, her lawsuit said. Nowicki did not want the relationship to end after she broke it off in May 2002, and allegedly continued harassing her until the lawsuit was filed Wednesday.
Among other allegations, Pickering’s lawsuit says Nowicki allegedly used a department-issued camera to take unwanted photographs of her as she taught a woman’s self defense class at the Peabody Police Department in October 2002. She also says Nowicki made a string of harassing phone calls and e-mails and “stalked” her at work over the past five and a half years.
Nowicki worked at the department’s Middleton and Lawrence facilities during the time the alleged harassment occurred, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that when she complained to the department’s Internal Investigator, Michael J. Roche, he told her she was “lying and trying to make the sheriff look bad.” Sheriff Cousins was named in the suit because he “is responsible for the overall operation and administration of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department.”
Pickering’s lawsuit also states that Nowicki created a website about Pickering and used the unauthorized photos taken with a department camera on the site.
Pickering obtained at least one restraining order against Nowicki, which was issued at Newburyport District Court in May 2005 after receiving advice from a detective at the Lynn Police Department, the lawsuit stated. A few days before the restraining order was filed, Nowicki was transferred from the Lawrence facility back to Middleton.
When Pickering filed a complaint against the Sheriff’s Department in July 2006 for allegedly not taking action on her previous sexual harassment complaints, she was transferred from her position at the Middleton Jail to another position as an investigator in the department’s housing unit two months later, a move her lawsuit called “retaliation” for complaining about the harassment.
Pickering is now “traumatized” by the harassment and has caused her to become physically ill and suffer panic attacks, severe stress and anxiety, the lawsuit said.
Posted by: Loyal
I don't blame her. He allegedly harassed her for the past 5 years ?? What a loser, if her allegation is true. Who would want their sister or daughter treated like that ?
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: 01/25/2008 Guard sues sheriff, ex-beau in stalking case By Julie Manganis Staff writer
MIDDLETON - An employee of the Sheriff's Department has filed a lawsuit alleging that she was sexually harassed and stalked by a colleague she once dated and that jail officials not only failed to address the situation but retaliated against her when she complained. Kelly Pickering, a captain at Middleton Jail since 2003, had dated fellow correctional officer Stephen Nowicki for about a year but ended the relationship in 2002, according to the lawsuit. "What followed, and has continued to date, is a pattern of behavior that has created an extraordinarily hostile and unbearable work environment for Pickering, which the department was made aware of and has consistently refused to address," Pickering's lawyer, Jonathan Groux, said in a complaint filed yesterday in Salem Superior Court. The suit names Sheriff Frank Cousins and the Sheriff's Department, Nowicki, and Michael Roche, an internal affairs investigator accused of failing to pursue Pickering's complaints. None of the defendants named in the suit had been served with a copy, and jail spokesman Paul Fleming said he would be unable to comment on the case until he had reviewed it. The suit seeks damages for emotional distress, compensation for economic losses and punitive damages for what the suit terms "willful statutory violations" by the defendants, as well as costs. The suit alleges that after the breakup, Nowicki would not accept that the relationship was over, calling her repeatedly at work and at home and forcing her to change her phone and pager numbers and mailing address. During a conference, Pickering alleges, Nowicki used a department camera to take surreptitious photos of her in full tactical gear, which later ended up on a Web site that he allegedly created all about Pickering and on his computer at the jail. At first, Pickering asked a supervisor to speak to Nowicki "as a friend" to ask him to stop contacting her. But when that did not work, she eventually filed a formal complaint with internal affairs investigator Roche. Roche, Pickering alleges, accused her of lying "to make the sheriff look bad." Pickering subsequently filed a complaint with the department's personnel director, who told her he would have Roche look into the complaint. Roche again accused Pickering of lying. Pickering alleges that Roche also disclosed information about her complaint to other employees.
Jail officials later decided Nowicki's conduct was "not work-related" and took no action, according to the complaint. The lawsuit alleges that Nowicki continued to stalk her, learning her new e-mail address. The jail also subsequently transferred Nowicki from the Lawrence Correctional Alternative Center to Middleton Jail, where Pickering worked. Roche allegedly told Pickering that Nowicki had left her a letter of apology and told Pickering to "get this thing settled before he comes back." When she received two harassing e-mails from Nowicki, Pickering went to court and obtained a temporary restraining order against him. After the order had lapsed, she alleges, Nowicki followed her as she left work and while driving home. She also says Nowicki would stare at her. After Pickering filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in 2006, she alleges that jail officials retaliated by transferring her from the special investigations unit to the housing unit. The case does not yet have a trial date.
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