A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury on Wednesday awarded $3.6 million to a Los Angeles police officer who said he was demoted and suffered retaliation when he stood up for a sexually harassed colleague.
Officer Donald Bender was stripped of a rank and kicked out of the department's canine bomb unit at LAX after he came to the defense of the only woman in the unit, who was subjected to lewd jokes and innuendoes and excluded from training sessions, according to Matthew McNicholas, Bender's attorney.
Wednesday's verdict marked the second multimillion-dollar jury verdict in the last three months resulting from retaliation claims. In September, a jury awarded $3.1 million to a Los Angeles Police Department officer who said he was penalized for reporting a superior's racial epithets and possible embezzlement. Additionally, the City Council is scheduled to vote next week on yet another large payout to settle the case of Patricia Fuller, the female officer whom Bender said he supported. A person close to the matter said the figure was in the millions of dollars.
"There is a history of this type of situation, where we're losing millions of dollars in these hard economic times," said Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD sergeant and member of the council's Public Safety Committee.
Zine said the verdicts were an indication that there were gaps in investigations by the department's professional standards bureau and internal affairs. He called for the Police Commission's civilian watchdog to investigate the problem.
"How does this happen if it's all done properly?" he said.
Bender, who lost nearly half of his pay after the demotion and had to refinance his house to keep afloat, was in tears after the jury returned the verdict, McNicholas said. The jury's unanimous decision came after three hours of deliberations.
Attorneys for the city argued that Bender was disciplined because he improperly stored dangerous equipment containing explosives used to train the department's bomb-detecting dogs. Bender was also insubordinate and had problems getting along with others in the unit, the attorneys contended.
"Obviously the city is disappointed with the verdict, and we're looking at avenues to challenge it both in the trial court and on appeal," Deputy City Atty. Daniel Aguilera said.
