O.C. FBI Agents Sue Alleging Sex Harassment

Two female FBI agents on Friday filed a civil rights lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging they were fondled and taunted by a supervisor who heads the bureau’s white-collar-crime unit in Orange County.

The lawsuit by veteran agents Boni Carr Alduenda, 40, and Heather Power-Anderson, 38, is believed to be the first sexual harassment case filed by women still working as agents. It follows recent discrimination lawsuits against the bureau by gays and minorities. Carr Alduenda and Power-Anderson allege that senior FBI officials retaliated after they complained in 1992.

Supervising Agent John Carpenter, accused of harassing both women, said Friday that he was not aware of the lawsuit. He acknowledged an internal investigation into the harassment complaints filed against him but declined to elaborate.

“I deny everything,” Carpenter said.

FBI officials in Washington, Los Angeles and Santa Ana declined to comment, saying they do not discuss pending litigation. Bill Carter, a bureau spokesman in Washington, said the FBI “simply does not tolerate sexual harassment.”

Power-Anderson has been a special agent since 1984, Carr Alduenda since 1988. They are assigned to the bureau’s 65-agent Santa Ana field office, where Carpenter is a supervisor.

Their lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana names Atty. Gen. Janet Reno as defendant. The agents allege that Carpenter taunted them at work, grabbing them and making lewd remarks for several months in 1992.

“There is a cruel irony that the department of the U.S. government vested with enforcing the civil rights of our citizens would officially sanction retaliation against its female agents in an effort to discourage these women from exercising their own rights,” said Christopher B. Mears, an Irvine lawyer representing the agents.

Power-Anderson said Carpenter massaged her shoulders, and in one incident, kissed her at the back of the neck while she was sitting at her desk. Another time, she alleged, Carpenter tore her dress when he attempted to forcibly place his hand on her upper thigh.

Carr Alduenda alleged that Carpenter constantly grabbed her and made lewd remarks, including commenting about the size of her breasts.

In the lawsuit, she said that when she returned from maternity leave in September, 1992, Carpenter said to her: “Maternity has been good to you. Your breasts are really big. Are you breast feeding? I wish I was your baby.”

Carpenter has been an FBI agent for more than 20 years, according to the lawsuit. His wife, Cathy, also is an agent in a white-collar-crimes unit in the Santa Ana office, though not in her husband’s squad.

Some of the alleged harassment occurred in the presence of other agents and employees, the women said.

According to the lawsuit, Carpenter once sneaked up behind Power-Anderson and placed his hands on her buttocks in the presence of Supervising Agent Linus Danilevicius and two other employees. She said Danilevicius didn’t respond, but remarked, “It’s five o’clock, time to go.”

Carpenter allegedly replied, “Goddammit Linus, why did you tell her what time it is? If she didn’t know she would have stayed.”

The women said the harassment began in early 1992 and continued into October of that year, when they complained to James Donckels, agent-in-charge of the Santa Ana office.

Carpenter stopped sexually harassing them after they complained to Donckels, but a new round of recriminations began, the women said in the lawsuit. The day after they talked to Donckels, the agents said, Carpenter wrote memos criticizing their work.

Donckels told Power-Anderson he could not remove her from Carpenter’s squad and that he could not tell her boss to stop his conduct, the lawsuit alleges. Donckels was out of his office Friday afternoon, but a department spokesman declined to comment on his behalf.

In the lawsuit, Power-Anderson and Carr Alduenda said Donckels discouraged them from filing discrimination complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but advised them to put their complaints in writing so that he could forward them to the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal FBI unit that investigates administrative misconduct.

“Sexual harassment is not discrimination,” the lawsuit quotes Donckels as saying. “It’s administrative misconduct, so OPR takes care of it.”

But Mears, the women’s lawyer, said Donckels had a responsibility to send the complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Office, not the internal unit.

“The only conceivable reason why this (was investigated) internally was to launch a retaliatory investigation designed to intimidate and embarrass these agents into dropping their complaints,” Mears said. “The very nature of these gestures are so clearly sexual harassment, it’s the only way that Donckels could have interpreted them.”

A week after Donckels referred the matter to the internal unit, Power-Anderson and Carr Alduenda were interviewed by an OPR panel in Washington on Nov. 5. At that inquiry, Power-Anderson asked why EEOC was not investigating her complaint.

According to the lawsuit, assistant FBI director Joe Johnson, who holds the agency’s third highest rank, replied that “sexual harassment is misconduct, not an EEO matter. . . . If you want criminal, go to the D.A. but be prepared, they’ll look into your character.”

According to Mears, a week after the two women were summoned to Washington, the same OPR panel came to Orange County, where they interviewed 51 agents and employees at a Brea hotel.

In Orange County, members of the OPR team told the two women that they were investigating counter-allegations made against them, the lawsuit states.

On the orders of a senior FBI official in Los Angeles, Power-Anderson was eventually transferred out of Carpenter’s squad in November, the lawsuit states.

But Donckels warned her, “You may have gotten off the squad, but you’re not moving your desk, and you’re not reassigning your cases,” according to the lawsuit.

Both women say they were mocked by some male colleagues, and the lawsuit states that in Power-Anderson’s case, her work reviews dropped from “exceptional” or “superior” rankings before her complaints to “fully successful” afterward.

Mears said his clients have suffered stress, including “headaches, stomach and gynecological problems.” They continue to work in the same office as Carpenter, despite their protests, Mears said.

Power-Anderson and Carr Alduenda broke the FBI’s unspoken code of silence and understand the consequences of their lawsuit, he said.

“They stand a high probability of being fired, but they are determined to assert their legal rights to keep their jobs,” Mears said. “The FBI is making a big mistake because instead of being intimidated, these women should be honored. They embody the very values that all of us want to see in the FBI.”

Mears said his clients are the first active agents to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against the bureau. He said the lawsuit names Reno as the sole defendant because she is the only official who can be sued under civil rights laws.

FBI spokesman Carter said Friday he is unaware of any similar actions by current agents.

Former agent Suzane J. Doucette filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Justice Department in September, alleging she was sexually harassed by the head of the FBI’s Arizona office. She said she was dismissed last year after she pursued her complaint, and filed her case after leaving the bureau.

The FBI refused to hire women as agents until after former director J. Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972.

Last year, agents calling themselves Special Agent Women Interested in Fair Treatment began mailing agents a newsletter about issues affecting women in the bureau. But the group’s agents do not publicly identify themselves, reflecting the reluctance of women in the FBI to openly confront discrimination issues.

“This is an agency that is still being brought kicking and screaming into a 20th-Century understanding of how women must be treated in the workplace,” Mears said.

Who the Agents Are

Boni Carr Alduenda

* Age: 40

* Career: Joined FBI in September, 1988; works in the bureau’s Santa Ana office. Assigned to white-collar-crimes unit, investigating bank failures and bank frauds. In 1993, received commendation from then-FBI Director William Sessions for undercover role in investigation of federal judges accused of taking bribes, according to her attorney.

* Background: Bachelor’s degree in finance from USC. Worked as supervisor for Hughes Aircraft and Los Angeles County Health Services Department before joining the bureau. Lives in Laguna Niguel with husband Ray Alduenda, a detective supervisor with Los Angeles Police Department. Couple have a 1-year-old son and are expecting a second child.

* Allegations: Lawsuit accuses supervisor of making repeated sexist comments, including “nice dress, nice walk.” In one incident, the agent alleged, he grabbed her blouse between her breasts and pulled her toward him when she entered an elevator. Often the supervisor would lean against her, so that his shoulders would touch her breast, she alleged. Said he retaliated after she reported the incidents.

Heather Power-Anderson

* Age: 38

* Career: Joined FBI as a special agent in March, 1984; works in the bureau’s Santa Ana office. Assigned to applicants and civil rights squad. Previously worked in FBI’s offices in Minneapolis and New York before moving to Orange County in 1990. Received a commendation from then-FBI Director William Sessions in 1991 for undercover work in investigating bank robberies and kidnaping cases, according to her attorney.

* Background: Orange County sheriff’s deputy for three years before joining FBI. Graduated from San Diego State University with bachelor’s degree, majoring in psychology, philosophy and political science. Currently studying for master’s degree in criminal justice administration. Lives in Mission Viejo with husband Jeff Anderson, a mortgage banker.

* Allegations: Says a supervisor began sexually harassing her in 1992 when he massaged her shoulders at work. Alleged that he later kissed the back of her neck, grabbed her and made suggestive remarks. On one occasion, her lawsuit alleges, supervisor commented on the buttons on her blouse, stating, “Oh, that looks good enough to eat,” and then lowering his head to her chest as if to bite the buttons. When she protested, agent says, supervisor retaliated by repeatedly beeping her in the field and “generally engaging in close and unnecessary monitoring” of her work.

Source: Plaintiffs’ attorney; Researched by DAVAN MAHARAJ / Los Angeles Times

Investigating and Investigated

As part of the U.S. Justice Department, the FBI’s wide-ranging responsibilities include enforcement of the national’s civil rights laws banning discrimination. But critics charge the FBI has its own record of racial and sexual discrimination. Recent lawsuits depict the FBI as a workplace that can be hostile toward women and minorities. Some recent discrimination cases:

* December, 1993: FBI reversed its longstanding policy that effectively barred openly gay men and lesbians from its ranks. The change was part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by former agent Frank Buttino of San Diego, a 20-year veteran who was fired after his supervisors received an anonymous letter in 1988 stating that he is gay. In addition to the policy reversal, the FBI also agreed to pay Buttino an undisclosed sum and to hire rejected for a job in 1987 because she is lesbian.

* September, 1993: Former agent Suzane J. Doucette alleged in a federal lawsuit that her boss--the head of the FBI’s Arizona office--physically assaulted her during an undercover assignment in 1988. Doucette also alleged that he promised her promotions if she consented to sex. She said she was later warned by supervisors not to file a complaint. Doucette was placed on unpaid leave by the FBI and she eventually resigned. She filed a lawsuit after leaving the bureau and her case is pending in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

* January, 1993: The FBI agreed to allow a federal judge to monitor its employment practices to ensure that black agents are treated fairly. The settlement averted a class-action lawsuit by black agents and called for promotion of blacks to several supervisory positions within the next three years.

FACTS

* FBI has 10,400 agents nationwide.

* About 11%, or 1,195 agents, are women. The highest ranking woman is Assistant Director Burdena G. Pasenelli, who until recently was the only woman agent in charge of a field office, in Anchorage, the FBI’s smallest. She now heads the bureau’s finance division in Washington.

* There are 516 black agents and 600 Latino agents.

* Of 56 FBI field offices, one is headed by an African American. Another is headed by a Latino who won a discrimination suit against the bureau.

Source: FBI; Times reports; Researched by DAVAN MAHARAJ / Los Angeles Times