GLENDALE : Same-Sex Charges of Harassment Filed

Three former female employees of Crossland Mortgage Co. have filed suit against the firm in Glendale Superior Court, alleging they were sexually harassed by two female managers.

Patty Easton, Peggy Maarup and Maria Scott contend that Betsy Lamonte, a company vice president, and Lorene Washington, an operations manager, asked the three women sexually explicit questions on almost a daily basis throughout 1993.

The suit, filed April 6, asks for unspecified monetary damages, and charges that each woman was forced to work in a hostile work environment filled with sexual innuendo, causing Maarup, 41, and Scott, 37, to quit their jobs. Both women were account executives at the company.

A hearing on the matter is set for Nov. 1 in Burbank Superior Court. Neither the women nor their attorney could be reached for comment.

The suit is the first of its kind after a California Supreme Court decision last month that upheld a Court of Appeal finding that same-sex harassment cases are admissible in state courts, said Sherman Oaks attorney Henry Bockman, who is representing the plaintiffs.

The suit is also the latest action in what has become a tangled dispute. In February, Crossland and Lamonte sued Maarup and Maarup’s current employer, Dollar Mortgage Corp., in Los Angeles Superior Court for slander and unfair trade practices.

Lamonte alleges in the suit that Maarup called her a lesbian. The claim also states that Maarup took a list of clients from Crossland to Dollar and allowed Dollar to use that information.

In the suit filed this month, Easton, 42, alleges that Lamonte and Washington would come into her office to see what she was wearing, “touch her, and lift her blouse, shirt and jacket.”

Easton, a former senior underwriter at the firm, contends she was fired after about a year of service when Lamonte, 33, discovered she had asked an attorney about her rights under anti-harassment statutes.

Maarup and Scott said in the suit that, during a birthday party for Washington, 40, Lamonte pasted nude photos of men on office walls and gave Washington a sexual device as a present.

Bockman said his clients were forced to sue Lamonte, Washington and Utah-based Crossland after the mortgage company rejected an offer to settle the case. He also denied the allegations in the suit filed by Crossland and Lamonte.