Complaint resurfaces in AG race

Although the city of Oakland had a policy of zero tolerance for sexual harassment, unwanted advances and sexually charged comments to female employees by a powerful aide to Mayor Jerry Brown went unaddressed in 1999 and 2000, the early years of his administration, records and interviews show.

Present and past city employees said Brown seemed oblivious to the conduct of longtime confidant and top aide Jacques Barzaghi until the mayor’s protocol chief lodged a sexual harassment complaint against him in 2000. The mayor then blamed other aides for not warning him about Barzaghi’s behavior, staffers said.

The issue resurfaced last week in Brown’s campaign for state attorney general when his opponent, state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), appeared with the protocol chief at a news conference and asserted that Brown’s failure to protect his own workers cast doubt on his suitability to serve as California’s chief law enforcement official.

Brown’s campaign has dismissed Poochigian’s criticisms as a desperate move by a candidate far behind in the polls. Spokesman Ace Smith said Friday that neither he nor the mayor would discuss the matter because the election was only days away.

“I handled that fine,” Brown said in a recent comment on the protocol chief’s case. “Would I do anything different? Nothing that comes to mind.”

Barzaghi, who was fired in 2004 after his wife called police to report a violent domestic dispute, denied that he harassed City Hall co-workers and said criticism of Brown for his handling of a 6-year-old case is unfair.

“Now his opponent is using that which is not a true story ... to attack him,” Barzaghi, a former French legionnaire now living in Morocco with his wife and two children, said in a telephone interview.

Nereyda Lopez-Bowden, a mother of three hired to oversee international relations and protocol for the city, filed a harassment complaint after returning from a trip with Brown and Barzaghi to the inauguration of Mexican President Vicente Fox in late 2000. She alleged that during the trip, Barzaghi threatened her job if she did not sleep with him and that he had also sexually harassed her and other female employees before the journey.

After an independent investigation by a labor attorney who interviewed 19 current and former city employees, Barzaghi was suspended without pay for 15 days, his salary was reduced and the city settled Lopez-Bowden’s claim for $50,000.

The report has not been released on grounds that witnesses were promised confidentiality. But Oakland City Atty. John Russo said in an interview that the investigation “found a pattern of behavior that violated the city zero-tolerance policy and that the complaint by Ms. Lopez-Bowden probably was valid.”

The complaint was the first one lodged against Barzaghi, Russo said, and the mayor cooperated with the investigation.

“He did not try to coach people on what to say or threaten stuff,” Russo said. “He threw up his hands and said it’s hard to believe it happened, but do what you have to do.”

The blunt-spoken Brown, a former California governor, and Barzaghi -- bald, tattooed and typically dressed in black -- had been inseparable for more than 30 years. In Oakland, they lived in the same communal loft, and the intensely loyal Barzaghi served as a senior advisor in Brown’s administration as well as an armed bodyguard.

Present and former employees, speaking anonymously to avoid harming their careers, described a mayor’s office that was buoyed by Brown’s election victory in 1998 and enthused about its mission of transforming a city beset by crime and economic woes.

Barzaghi helped steer the course, whether providing input on major policy decisions or making sure the mayor interacted with schoolchildren touring City Hall.

The staff was close and cohesive. They talked about their personal lives, their dates. Some told bawdy stories and off-color jokes in private.

Several people who worked with Barzaghi during those years said he offended people by leering at women, using sexual innuendo and making personal comments about their bodies and clothes.

“It was not upsetting to me, because I did not take anything [from him],” said one mayor’s office employee, adding that Barzaghi’s words and actions brought another woman to tears. “But for some of the ... women, it was a big issue.”

Some workers said women were reluctant to go to Brown or other officials because Barzaghi was so close to the mayor; they feared it would do no good or could come back to haunt them.

“No one complained ... because Jacques was his boy, and they have a long-standing relationship,” said one woman, who recalled that Barzaghi once remarked on the fit of her clothing in front of Brown but that the mayor did not seem to notice.

Barzaghi said no women complained to him about what he called his “collegial” behavior. “If you say to a woman today, ‘I really like your dress,’ that is sexual harassment,” he said, noting that he is 68. “Whatever I said, I never intended to harm anybody and, if I did [so], I am sorry.”

Lopez-Bowden was hired in the fall of 2000, and during her first month on the job, Barzaghi made flirtatious comments and demanded sexual favors, according to her complaint.

On the visit to Mexico at the end of November that year, she said in an interview, Barzaghi criticized some of the arrangements she had made and said she would be fired unless she had sex with him. She said she later reported the incident to Brown.

“He said, ‘Jacques is not like that,’ ” she recalled in an interview. “He was basically saying not to overreact.”

Upon her return to Oakland, she filed a sexual harassment complaint and met with Brown. “He said, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ ” she recounted. “I said, ‘I do not want to hurt you. I am not the villain. Jacques is.’ ”

Barzaghi said he assured Brown that the allegations were false. “I am confident enough to say that [today] and feel good if I drop dead tomorrow,” he said.

Lopez-Bowden settled her claim for $50,000, after the city contended she had falsely claimed on her resume that she attended law school. Her attorney, Michael Meadows, said it was settled because the controversy was becoming too stressful for her family.

“I ideally would have been able to establish that the mayor knew what Barzaghi was doing and took steps to allow him to do it,” Meadows said. “But it was not like that.”

When the breadth of the problem in his office emerged, Brown was upset with his staff and demanded to know why they had not told them about Barzaghi’s behavior, according to some employees.

One former employee said Brown is “careful” about proper behavior, “so to have such a blind eye about Jacques is a tragedy.”

tim.reiterman@latimes.com

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