Jury Awards $195,000 in Harassment Suit : Courts: A former officer of the Buena Park Police Department alleged two co-workers sexually harassed her during her two years with the department.

In the second sexual harassment verdict against the Buena Park Police Department this year, a Superior Court jury on Monday awarded $195,000 to a former officer who alleged that two co-workers made lewd and sexist remarks and pinched and slapped her on the buttocks during her two years with the department.

In her suit, Sandra Jean McClaren, 26, accused Buena Park Police Lt. Anthony Kelly and former Sgt. Jerry Smock of sexually harassing her, and she accused the city of discriminating and retaliating against her.

Last Friday, the jury determined that Kelly and Smock were not guilty of sexual harassment and deadlocked on whether the city should be held liable for damages.

After deliberating for another six hours Monday, the jury ruled that the city should pay $100,000 for emotional damages and another $95,000 for the premature end of McClaren’s police career.

“I am very happy with the jury’s decision,” McClaren said from her Riverside home Monday.”I feel vindicated and believed. I’m happy that I had a chance to tell the truth and that people recognize that there is a problem about the way the department treats women.”

Last January, a Superior Court jury awarded $17,500 to Victoria Chaney, a former Police Department employee who said that male police officers sexually harassed and constantly abused her in her seven years with the department.

Carrie MacMillin, a Newport Beach attorney who represented both McClaren and Chaney in their separate lawsuits, said she hopes that the verdict will force the Police Department to improve its treatment of women.

“I hope (the Department) will treat women fairly in hiring and being sensitive to them,” MacMillin said. “In a police force with 90 officers, they have hired only two women. I think they are a little backward, and now is a good time for them to give women a chance to do the job.”

Police Chief Richard Tefank declined comment, saying that he had not consulted the city attorney about the verdict.

Buena Park Mayor Rhonda J. McCune said she was “obviously dismayed” at the verdict but said she could not comment further because she had not been briefed on the jury’s decision.

McClaren blamed her resignation from the department in 1989 on the behavior of her two male colleagues. Apart from making lewd and sexist remarks to her, McClaren charged that Kelly and Smock once dragged her into the men’s locker room and taunted her.

McClaren said the male officers’ behavior subsequently affected her job performance as an investigations assistant with the Riverside Police Department, where she later went to work.

The two officers denied the charge. During her cross-examination, McClaren testified that she could not remember specific details about the harassment because she “didn’t commit it to memory.”

McClaren said Monday that she planned “to go on with my life” and her police career, but that she was having trouble finding a job.

“Suing a department with allegations like these is a kiss of death,” McClaren said. “I think I may have to go back to school and start all over again. I feel as if my career has been taken away from me.”