Police Dept. Accused in Sex-Harassment Suit : Courts: Cypress officer contends she was target of pranks, retaliation after complaining of photo of scantily clad model.

Sandra D. Stanton, who rose through the ranks to become the first female sergeant in this city’s Police Department, figured that 1992 ought to have been the best year of her 14-year career.

Her colleagues had just selected her “Officer of the Year.” She had an article published in a leading law enforcement journal and was doing well at the Golden West College Police Academy, where she trains young recruits.

Instead, the late months of 1991 and early 1992 brought Stanton trauma rather than celebration, she alleges in documents filed in Orange County Superior Court.

On her desk, someone left a photocopy of the dictionary definition of the word bitch. A message on a key holder left on her desk stated, “Let’s Get Drunk So I Can Take Advantage of You.” The pockets of her uniform were stapled shut, and glass shards were dumped in her desk.

Stanton, 42, claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the city and its Police Department that her career was marked for ruin when she complained that male colleagues--including her ex-husband, who was also her supervisor--taunted her in April, 1991, with a photo of a scantily clad woman.

By the beginning of 1992, she had received a poor evaluation and knew she had been targeted for retaliation, she said.

Stanton and her lawyer say the civil suit, which went to trial this week, will include testimony from at least three other female employees that this small Police Department was a hotbed of favoritism and sexual harassment.

“I’ve been through hell,” Stanton said in her first interview since filing the lawsuit in December, 1992. “This (harassment) has caused me worries and medical problems I never had before. What my colleagues have done to me should never happen to anyone.”

Cypress Police Chief Daryl Wicker and Lt. James Weuve, her ex-husband, have denied the allegations. Both declined to elaborate, saying they will present their sides at the trial.

But Harold Bridges, a lawyer representing the city of Cypress, said both the city’s personnel office and the state Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found no evidence of harassment or retribution when each conducted investigations of Stanton’s allegations.

“Sandy Stanton has exercised her rights to have this matter investigated,” Bridges said, “but she was not happy with the outcome. To continue with this matter, with no evidence of retaliation, and to seek large sums of money, is a gross misuse of the system.”

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Stanton no longer works as a police officer. In May, 1992, she took medical leave from the department, saying she suffered stomach problems and headaches, and was taking anti-depressants--all of which she attributed to job-related stress.

She lives on workers’ compensation payments and earnings from teaching at the Golden West College Police Academy.

Stanton’s lawsuit is one of several in the past two years charging sexual harassment against a Southern California police department.

In 1992, the city of Buena Park lost two sexual harassment lawsuits, and last year, Garden Grove paid a $180,000 settlement to a fired reserve police officer who said she was fired for ending a romantic relationship with then-Police Chief John R. Robertson. Robertson has since become chief of police in Orange. In 1993, the city of Long Beach paid nearly $3 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by two of that city’s former policewomen.

Only two weeks ago, Newport Beach paid $175,000 to two of the 10 women who filed harassment lawsuits against the city, its former police chief and a former police captain. Similar lawsuits are pending in Irvine and San Clemente.

But Phyllis Gallagher, a Fullerton attorney who is representing Stanton, said her client’s lawsuit varies from this category of sexual harassment claim, in which women employees charge that they were fondled by their male colleagues.

Stanton’s case “is more typical of the gender-based discrimination that women face when they assert their rights not to be the target of abusive behavior,” Gallagher said. “They become punished for being ‘troublemakers.’ ”

City officials acknowledged that the civil trial comes at a difficult time for the 87-member department, which has morale problems and is in a labor dispute.

City Council members, who have received since early 1992 numerous unsigned letters alleging abuse, favoritism and mismanagement within the Police Department, have hired a Los Angeles law firm to investigate those claims.

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Meanwhile, police officers, who have been working without a contract for two years, have taken to picketing council meetings and mailing “information bulletins” to Cypress residents, which contend that this bedroom community in northwest Orange County is suffering a rising crime rate that its small force cannot handle.

Regardless of the outcome of the departmental problems, Stanton said that her childhood dream of having a career as a police officer has turned into a nightmare.

Stanton, who at one time was the department’s only female officer, joined the force in 1977, rising through the ranks to become a detective. In 1986, she was named the first female sergeant in the 37-year-old department’s history.

Stanton married fellow officer James Weuve in 1981. They were divorced three years later, but Stanton said she and Weuve maintained cordial relations until April, 1991, when she was made the target of locker-room humor.

It was in that month, according to court records and interviews with Stanton, that she showed up late to a weekly meeting of the department’s supervisors. Stanton said she apologized for her tardiness, noting that she had had difficulty getting a ride to the station.

During the meeting, another sergeant showed Stanton a postcard of a voluptuous model in a skimpy tank top, Stanton alleges in court documents. “If you looked like this, you’d probably not have any trouble getting a ride,” he was quoted as saying in court records.

The room erupted in laughter, Stanton said. Her ex-husband said, “No, No,” and joined the laughter.

On the day of the incident, Stanton wrote a letter to Weuve, in which she took issue with her fellow supervisors entertaining themselves at her expense.

“By your actions today, you have seen fit to show your contempt for me as a sergeant as well as a woman,” she said in the letter.

About eight months later in 1991, Weuve gave his ex-wife an “unfavorable performance review,” court documents state. Weuve continued to supervise Stanton, even though the police chief and City Manager Darrell Essex knew that their relationship was becoming increasingly strained, Stanton said.

Stanton said she became the victim of continued harassment. Some unknown person, or persons, repeatedly placed hostile notes in her mailbox.

Her lawyer, Gallagher, said Stanton’s civil rights were violated because the city failed to remedy the “general (and) sexual harassment” even after Stanton complained about it. The Police Department also allowed Stanton’s ex-husband to continue to supervise her even though he was “in large part responsible for the continuing pattern of sexual harassment and discrimination,” court papers state.

In a memo to Mayor Richard Partin, the police chief said that he knew Stanton’s “personal property (was) tampered with by persons unknown” and that he had warned every sergeant in the department to “refrain from such behavior.”

Bridges, the city’s lawyer, acknowledged that a colleague showed Stanton the postcard of the scantily clad woman. He said the incident was probably “in bad taste” but that no harassment was intended. Bridges also said Stanton was mistaken in interpreting Weuve’s response as jeering.

The city’s attorney said he doubts that Stanton will prevail in part because Stanton cannot trace any of the hostile messages to her ex-husband or any of her colleagues.

Stanton believes Bridges is mistaken.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that my problems only began after I brought to light some embarrassing facts to the department,” she said. “I want a jury to say that I didn’t deserve this. I want to have my day in court.”

Times correspondent Mimi Ko contributed to this report.