Jury Denies Damages to Fired Official : Courts: Jessie Roybal says an assistant forced her out of her post as director of an Indian job-training center in Ventura.

A Ventura County Superior Court jury Wednesday refused to award damages to an American-Indian woman who claimed she was ousted from the directorship of an Indian job-training center by a non-Indian.

Jurors rejected the argument that Jessie Roybal, fired from the Candelaria American Indian Council in Ventura two years ago, was forced out by an assistant seeking to wrest control of the nonprofit organization from his boss.

Attorney Richard Hamlish told the jury during the three-week trial that his client deserved $416,000 in cash damages. But the jury deliberated for fewer than three hours before finding for the defendants.

“I based my decision on the evidence,” jury foreman Pat O’Hare of Simi Valley said. “We felt she was not entitled to anything she had requested. It wasn’t proven to us.”

Roybal sued Candelaria, its director and board members after she was placed on administrative leave in August, 1991.

The suit contended Roybal was wrongly fired when her assistant, Bruce Stenslie, convinced the board of directors while Roybal was vacationing in Georgia that Roybal had embezzled funds from the organization.

Roybal also accused Stenslie of preventing her from finding a new job by telling prospective employers that Roybal had stolen money from Candelaria.

Stenslie and his attorney, Benjamin J. Engle, shook hands earnestly as the court clerk announced the verdict. Engle declined to talk about the case, but Stenslie said the council could now get back to “business as usual.”

“I think it was a complete nuisance lawsuit,” Stenslie said. “There was no foundation for it whatsoever. We clearly believe the jury made the right decision.”

Roybal said she had found more than 10,000 jobs for American Indians since 1975, when she began as Candelaria executive director.

Roybal said her firing was the culmination of a years-long attempt by Stenslie and Pamela DeRensis, S. Department of Labor agent who wanted the council to focus on job-training instead of job-placement services for its clients.

“I guess I’ll go straight to the district attorney and turn myself in,” Roybal said outside court, inferring the jury might have believed she took council funds for her own use.

Stenslie said that under Roybal, jobs for even one client were counted as many as 56 times to skew the success rate. Under his direction, the council trains its clients for permanent, high-paying jobs for American Indians, “not simply short-term work with no future,” Stenslie said.

He estimated the number of jobs he had found for his clients at “several hundred” each year.

“In the last two years we have concentrated our efforts on job-training and long-term job placement,” he said. “We don’t believe we’re serving fewer people.”

After the unanimous verdict Wednesday, Roybal and Hamlish blamed the judge for undermining their case in front of the jury. One juror who declined to give her name called Hamlish “incompetent” after the verdict.

Hamlish said Judge Barbara A. Lane continually sustained defense objections that prevented vital details of his case from being heard by the jury and making it appear that he didn’t know what he was doing.

“That’s what (Lane) did to me throughout the case. It helped undermine my case,” Hamlish said.