Female Technician Alleges Sexual Harassment at Jail

A woman who until recently worked as a correctional service technician at the Orange County Central Men’s Jail filed a lawsuit Wednesday charging 11 male Sheriff’s Department employees with sexual harassment.

“The allegations are very serious,” said Fred D. Crawford IV, a Santa Monica lawyer representing Ramona Barbour. “She’s gone through a lot of stress about what’s happened.”

According to the lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, Barbour, 38, was the victim in a pattern of harassment beginning in May, 1993, and lasting until earlier this year when she was transferred to another facility.

As the only woman working with 50 male employees in a secured area housing male inmates, the lawsuit said, Barbour was subjected to “a continuous and pervasive pattern of sexual harassment and discrimination” including “constant verbal harassment, making offensive and vulgar statements of a sexual nature, as well as some unwanted and uninvited physical sexual abuse.”

As a result, the lawsuit alleges, she was “embarrassed and humiliated in front of fellow employees” and caused to suffer “severe fright, shock, stress, aggravation . . . depression, discomfort, loss of sleep, nervousness, anxiety and . . . emotional distress,” some of which is “certain to be permanent in character.”

The lawsuit asks for $4 million in general and punitive damages.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said late Wednesday that there would be no comment until the department had had a chance to review the lawsuit. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Lt. Lynn Nehring said.

Among those named in the action was Sgt. William Kaufmann, described as Barbour’s supervisor. Others named included deputies Cook Laface, Ron Epperson and Matt Johnson, and correctional service technician Gil Rocha. Five other deputies and another correctional service technician were identified by last name only in the suit.