Panel Finds Firefighter Guilty on 6 of 10 Counts

A suspended Los Angeles city firefighter, accused by a woman firefighter of sexual harassment, was found guilty in a disciplinary hearing Tuesday of six misconduct charges, including allegations that he tried to touch her breasts, slapped her buttocks and simulated masturbation while on duty in Westchester.

But a departmental board of rights found Anthony Morales, 33, not guilty of deliberately appearing in the nude before Sharyl Plebuch Seward, attempting to kiss her against her will or intentionally putting his finger in her mouth.

After announcing the verdicts, the three-member board quickly moved to the penalty phase by considering Morales’ personnel file in closed session. The board is expected to make its penalty recommendation to Fire Chief Donald O. Manning later this week.

Morales, a seven-year veteran, faces possible discharge. “It’s a nightmare,” he said outside the hearing room after the verdicts.

The events leading to a lengthy investigation, the filing of 10 misconduct charges against Morales and Tuesday’s verdicts began almost exactly a year ago, when Morales and Seward were assigned to Fire Station 5. She was then completing the final weeks of a year’s probation.

Seward never filed sexual harassment charges against Morales. Her allegations of sexual harassment were uncovered in another investigation prompted by a woman paramedic’s complaint that sexually explicit material was being viewed in the station’s television room.

But, when she was summoned as a witness at the Morales hearing, Seward recounted, in sometimes tearful testimony, that she became a victim of sexual harassment almost immediately after being assigned to Westchester.

She accused Morales of deliberately appearing nude before her while she was exercising in an upstairs dormitory, attempting to kiss her, trying to pull her into a TV room to view the Playboy channel, asking to smell her underwear and inquiring about her breast size.

Morales denied that he had intentionally exposed himself to Seward. He insisted that it was an unintentional encounter after he had finished taking a shower. And, while admitting that some charges were partly true, he offered explanations suggesting that he and Seward were “engine mates” who engaged in physical “horseplay” and familiar conversations.

He testified that he and Seward had kissed once in the locker room, but he insisted that it was a mutual embrace, not a one-sided kiss by Morales, as Seward testified. He admitted that he once grabbed at Seward’s breasts, but he said it was only because they were playfully pulling and tugging.

Morales also faced two charges not involving the woman firefighter.

The board found him guilty of attempting to make a social contact with a female employee of a nursing center while on duty. But he was found not guilty of trying to use the Fire Department’s name and influence to receive favored treatment after a tavern altercation.

When the hearing began in late October, members of the board ordered it closed, despite Morales’ request that it be public. It was subsequently opened after charges against Morales had been revised to eliminate any mention of sexual harassment. Instead, Morales was accused of misconduct.