Prosecutor’s Office Accused of Sexual Harassment : Courts: A fired deputy D. A. makes the charges against her supervisor in Van Nuys. An aide to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner calls the allegations ‘baseless.’

A former deputy district attorney, attempting to draw parallels between her case and that of Anita Faye Hill, charged Monday that she was the victim of sexual harassment at the Van Nuys prosecutors’ office and that Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner ignored her complaints.

Colette Facio, who was fired from the Van Nuys district attorney’s staff in January, said her supervisor at the office had fondled her, made repeated jokes about performing sexual acts with her and got her fired when she refused to have sex with him.

A Reiner spokesperson said Facio was fired “in response to complaints from six judges” about her courtroom behavior and because of “numerous instances of unprofessional conduct and incompetence.”

Sandi Gibbons, a Reiner aide, also said Facio’s sexual harassment charges were “thoroughly investigated and found to be baseless.”

At a press conference Monday in Pasadena, where she is suing to get her $59,000-a-year job back, Facio said she was making her charges public to take advantage of the “heightened awareness of this issue because of the recent Senate hearings on Clarence Thomas.”

She said there were “quite a few similarities” between her and Hill, an Oklahoma law professor who charged at Thomas’ U.S. Supreme Court nomination hearings last month that Thomas had sexually harassed her while they worked together at two federal agencies. Despite Hill’s accusations, Thomas’ nomination was confirmed.

Facio charged that Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew W. Diamond, who was her supervisor in 1988 and 1989 when she handled preliminary hearings in Van Nuys Municipal Court, “pressured me nonstop for more than a year to have sex with him.”

She said he would walk up behind her in the office and “make really crude gestures like we were having sex. And he always was talking about oral sex with me.”

Diamond replied that Facio’s charges were “thoroughly looked into and found to be without foundation. I deny them categorically.”

Facio said she could not get her supervisors to act on her accusations despite filing eight written grievances against Diamond.

She acknowledged that her work performance fell off and that she clashed frequently with judges beginning in 1988, two years after becoming a deputy district attorney.

“To have your supervisor pressuring you and belittling you--he would even come into a courtroom and interrupt and undercut me--is an experience that is not consistent with good work performance,” she said.

When the hearing resumes Wednesday, Facio said she would call several witnesses to corroborate portions of the alleged harassment.

Although Facio declined to reveal specifics, a public relations firm working for her issued a statement Monday saying that Deputy Dist. Atty. Leslie Kenyon will testify that Diamond had also sexually harassed her.

Kenyon, who has since transferred from the prosecutors’ Van Nuys office to the Glendale office, was not at work Monday and could not be reached for comment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Sullivan, who is presenting the case for terminating Facio, said he has called numerous fellow prosecutors and seven judges who have been highly critical of Facio.

Four of the judges said they had barred Facio from their courtrooms, Sullivan said.

Reiner’s office on Monday released an 11-page letter that the district attorney sent to Facio in January listing the reasons for her firing.

The charges include frequent tardiness, unexplained absences, abusive behavior to clerks and fellow prosecutors, failure to prepare cases, shouting and arguing in court with bailiffs and mistreatment of witnesses, especially males.

The letter cites several criminal cases that Reiner says were dismissed because Facio failed to provide easily available evidence or because she failed to show up on time.

Hearing officer Leonard S. Kimmell said he expects testimony to end this week.

Kimmell said he will make a recommendation within 40 days to the County Civil Service Commission, which has the power to uphold Facio’s firing or reinstate her.