Conroy Paid Aide Suspended in Sex Harassment Case

It was intended as pocketbook punishment, pure and simple.

Back in 1994, the Assembly Rules Committee determined that Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) and Pete Conaty, the lawmaker’s chief of staff at the time, violated the house’s sexual-harassment policy.

Conroy was reprimanded, but Conaty was hit in the wallet, getting suspended from work for a week without pay.

But the staffer didn’t go begging. Instead, Conroy siphoned money from his campaign coffers and paid Conaty’s salary for that week. Conaty says the money was an advance on work he did later for Conroy’s reelection campaign.

The move has prompted attorneys for Robyn Boyd, the clerical worker who sued Conroy and Conaty for sexual harassment, to complain. They contend that the assemblyman and his top aide, by circumventing the fiscal punishment handed down by the Rules Committee, were disregarding the penalty.

“It exhibits a general lack of remorse,” said J. Scott Smith, a Sacramento attorney representing Boyd. “And it exhibits a lack of concern as to the seriousness of these allegations. . . . It clearly violated the spirit of the sanctions the Rules Committee intended.”

Conroy declined to comment, but Conaty was irate over the spin put on the episode by Boyd’s attorney.

Saying he and the lawmaker are innocent of any untoward behavior, Conaty suggested that Conroy was simply trying to be a good boss and help him out of a genuine financial bind he faced by losing a week’s pay.

“He knew I was hurting for money,” said Conaty, currently an Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee consultant who works out of Conroy’s Capitol office. “I was going through a divorce and had substantial financial obligations to my children.”

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The revelations about Conaty getting paid with campaign funds came with the recent leak of a December, 1994, deposition taken for the sexual-harassment lawsuit being pressed by Boyd.

In it, Conaty acknowledges that he worked at the Capitol as an “unpaid volunteer” during the week he was supposed to be suspended in March, 1994, but that Conroy paid him out of campaign coffers.

Conaty said in an interview that Boyd’s attorneys failed during the deposition to “ask the right questions” to get to the bottom of the issue. While he worked the week for Conroy as an unpaid volunteer, Conaty said, he got a $1,152 advance from the assemblyman’s campaign for work he did on his own time at night and during subsequent weekends to fashion a fund-raising plan for Conroy.

“I came to work for free that week out of a sense of obligation,” Conaty said. “It’s old-fashioned, but as a former military officer, you don’t desert your post.”

Conaty said that since the payment was for campaign work, not his service during the week he was suspended, he did not violate a state law making it a misdemeanor for legislative employees to receive compensation from anyone but the state for performing government work.

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Officials at the state Fair Political Practices Commission said Wednesday that they have not received any complaint about the episode.

Conaty also suggested that the nearly year-old deposition had been leaked either by Boyd’s attorneys to force a settlement or by Conroy’s political enemies to hurt the lawmaker’s chances in the upcoming race for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Conaty said he was speaking despite advice from attorneys that he remain quiet. “Enough is enough,” he said. “There comes a point where you have to fight for your good name.”

Boyd has maintained that after joining Conroy’s staff she was subjected to sexually explicit comments and behavior. An investigation conducted by a local law firm on behalf of the Rules Committee, which runs the Assembly’s day-to-day affairs, found that Conroy violated the house’s sexual harassment policy by embracing, kissing, asking for back rubs and making inappropriate comments to Boyd.

The investigation took Conaty to task for showing Boyd an X-rated magazine that had been distributed by another lawmaker pushing a pornography ban and for failing to notify Boyd of perceived performance problems that ultimately led to her firing.

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The lawsuit filed by Boyd, who is married and has three children, is scheduled to go to trial in Sacramento County Superior Court on May 5.

Both men have said that Boyd misinterpreted their comments or gestures and that they had no sexual intentions. The Rules Committee investigation found that the pair took efforts to alter their behavior once Boyd complained. Their actions, the report concluded, were the product “not of malice, but of ignorance and/or poor judgment.”

Conaty said that the Rules Committee investigation was “totally inadequate and bungled from the start.” He maintained that the investigation was rushed and didn’t properly detail Boyd’s background and the “true nature” of the office atmosphere, which he characterized as one of teamwork.

Conaty said he wrote a four-page letter objecting to the report, but was told that attempts to raise objections could interfere with settlement negotiations with Boyd.