Would-Be Officers Win Age Bias Suit

Lee LaGorio was just shy of 60 and eager to take on a new challenge when he entered the Los Angeles Police Academy in 1995. But the challenge turned into an ordeal, beginning with his dismissal from the academy after being accused of sexual harassment.

The Woodland Hills grandfather, now 63, believes he was the one harassed. With 64-year-old Dumas Robinson--who had also been fired for allegedly groping female cadets during training--he sued the LAPD for age discrimination, and earlier this month a jury awarded the men a total of $2 million.

The Police Department wants the city to appeal the verdict, so LaGorio might have to wait about two years to see whether he will collect. But LaGorio says he feels vindicated.

“This is all about getting my name back,” he said during an interview in the living room of the house he moved into with his wife, Linda, shortly after they were married in 1963.

LaGorio and Robinson believe they were singled out by a department intent on keeping older recruits from joining the force. The LAPD lifted its age limit of 35 in 1992, after city personnel officials said that the restriction might conflict with anti-discrimination laws and noted that officers over 35 tended to have fewer traffic accidents, use-of-force complaints and officer-involved shootings.

Although the department at the time agreed to follow the city recommendation, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks later argued that recruits over 35 drop out of the academy at a higher rate than younger cadets and may have shorter careers, giving the department less of a return on the $100,000 it invests in training and hiring each officer. The 35-year-old limit for recruits was reinstated last year.

Finding that the LAPD had discriminated against and harassed LaGorio because of his age, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded him just over $1.5 million. The jury awarded Robinson $450,000 after finding that the department harassed him because of his age.

Although LaGorio was accused by academy officials of touching only one woman, Robinson had allegedly been seen touching five female cadets during training, according to James Stroud, Robinson’s attorney. No cadets filed complaints against LaGorio, but one of the five women Robinson was accused of touching lodged a complaint against him, Stroud said.

Robinson was fired in 1995; LaGorio’s termination became final in 1997.

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish said the case has nothing to do with age. “We will not allow our female officers to be molested. If [LaGorio and Robinson] were 21 years old they would have received the same treatment,” he said.

But Robinson accused the LAPD of leveling sexual harassment charges against the older recruits, to “make you so embarrassed you wouldn’t file a lawsuit,” he said.

Robinson and LaGorio believed that their work and life experiences would have made them unusually valuable to the police force.

Robinson speaks Spanish fluently, having served as an Army interpreter, and was an investigator for the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment for 22 years.

LaGorio worked for an aerospace company for 20 years, then ran his own business exporting high-performance motorcycle parts for 20 years before applying to join the LAPD.

LaGorio said he was inspired to apply for the police force when he read a 1994 newspaper story about Edward Olivares, who became the department’s oldest rookie at 59. Olivares quit the department four months after graduating from the academy.

LaGorio said he felt up to the physical challenge. An off-road motorcycle and truck racer, LaGorio had finished the grueling Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races.

LaGorio said that once he entered the academy, he thought he might be watched more closely by academy officials than other recruits because “my children were older than most of the others.”

But he said other cadets never made his age an issue and they elected him class vice president. LaGorio’s attorney, John Denove, said LaGorio’s academy evaluations rated him average in physical ability and above average in academic performance.

According to LaGorio, his problems began one day when he was paired with a female recruit during a class. In a search training drill, the woman was lying face down, with LaGorio straddling her. With one hand, LaGorio lifted her by the shoulder, and as directed, moved his other hand between her chest and the floor to simulate a search.

The instructor accused LaGorio of touching his partner’s chest, and warned him not to let it happen again, LaGorio said. LaGorio said his hand may have brushed against her but he was not sure. Later in the class, while they were in the same positions, LaGorio said he lost his balance, and his hand landed on the woman’s buttocks.

The woman never filed a complaint against LaGorio, and she testified in the trial that she believed LaGorio had done nothing wrong.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, LaGorio, who now works as a commodities broker in Thousand Oaks, said he had wanted to become a police officer to give something back to his hometown. Instead, the man whose only political activism had been attending Republican fund-raisers became a plaintiff in a discrimination suit.

The suit, he now realizes, may be his contribution.

“If it brings attention to discriminatory tactics, it was well worth doing,” LaGorio said. “I’d go through another 3 1/2 years of this if I thought it would do any good.”