NEW ORLEANS — A federal sexual harassment lawsuit has been filed by a woman who was an Orleans Parish Sheriff’s deputy and alleged widespread harassment by her male colleagues in a joint WWL-TV/New Orleans Advocate investigation last year.
Christine Conner’s lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office claims her employer was indifferent when she made verbal complaints that a male deputy was harassing her in 2016.
She had dated that deputy, Clemont Griffin, and he got her pregnant, but then they broke up, Conner said. When she returned from maternity leave, Griffin harassed her and once put her in a reverse wrist-lock submission hold while accosting her about talking with another male deputy, Conner alleged.
The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court alleges the Sheriff’s Office did nothing about her complaints, refused to move her to a different shift from Griffin and promoted Griffin to sergeant. She also claims in the lawsuit that she was punished for complaining and had her salary cut. She quit her job – under duress, she said – in January 2018.
She told WWL-TV and The Advocate last May that such treatment of female deputies by their male counterparts was rampant at the jail.
“They treat them like they're candy. They pass them off to each other,” Conner said. “They get in groups and talk about who's going to get after who first. It's disgusting.”
Griffin has not responded to several requests for comment. Sheriff’s Office attorney Blake Arcuri had no comment Monday because he said the office had not yet been served with the lawsuit.
Sheriff Marlin Gusman has previously said his office takes all sexual harassment complaints seriously, although he accused WWL-TV of sensationalizing and exaggerating the problem when it confronted him at an event last year.
Conner seeks lost wages and damages for emotional distress, as well as payments for psychiatric treatment she said she incurred as a result of the harassment.