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Forsyth County denies allegations in lawsuit filed against board of election
By: MICHAEL HEWLETT | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: December 21, 2011 Updated: December 21, 2011 - 12:00 AM
Forsyth County officials denied in court papers filed Monday that Elections Director Rob Coffman sexually harassed employees and allowed election law violations.
The court papers were a formal response to a lawsuit that Pamela Johnson, Terry Cox and Deena Head filed in Forsyth Superior Court in October. They alleged in the lawsuit that the Forsyth County Board of Elections was negligent in hiring Coffman in 2006 and refused to fire him after the employees raised allegations about sexual harassment and other misconduct.
But county officials say in their response filed Monday that Johnson, Cox and Head did not file official complaints with the county or follow the county's internal grievance process. The lawsuit was filed against the county, the county board of elections and Coffman.
James Morgan, the attorney for the county, declined to comment on the county's response. James Hairston, the attorney for the plaintiffs, declined to comment, saying he had not gotten a copy of the county's response.
The plaintiffs accused Coffman of calling one employee a "crack ho," and saying that another one "runs her mouth too much and she's too fat." The suit accuses him of calling an employee a "dyke" in front of co-workers and asking aloud if a teenage girl who had won a costume contest had dressed "like a prostitute."
The accusations of Coffman making inappropriate comments and allowing election law violations were aired extensively earlier this year.
County officials say in the response that the lawsuit should be barred on the basis of governmental immunity.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs said that Coffman, who was hired as elections director in 2006, had been sued for sexual harassment in Michigan, where he had previously worked. In 1995, Coffman settled the suit, in which he and two other employees of a nonprofit group were accused of sexual harassment.
County officials said in the response that the Michigan lawsuit was "baseless."
"It is further admitted that the allegations contained in the (Michigan) complaint filed in that baseless lawsuit speak for themselves," county officials said in court papers.
In the Forsyth County case, Head accused Coffman in the lawsuit of calling her a "crack ho." Coffman has acknowledged that a comment he made was "completely in the wrong" in a 2008 incident involving Head. He said he received counseling and has denied making any inappropriate comments since then.
State elections officials cleared Coffman of any election-law violations in January, and the county elections board made the same finding in February.
Coffman kept his job after the elections board discussed allegations of personnel misconduct against him in closed session.
Johnson, who started at the board of election in 2001, alleges that Coffman called her a "dyke," a derogatory term for a lesbian, after she got her hair cut in June 2007.
She also said in the lawsuit that she reported Coffman to county officials for improperly using a county credit card, hiring a consultant without bidding the position and allowing election law violations. In the past, the plaintiffs have accused Coffman of allowing illegal voter registration and miscounting absentee ballots.
Johnson said she was fired in 2009 and was never told she could appeal the dismissal. She said that county officials told her she was being fired for failing to pay invoices on time. County officials say Johnson resigned and was not fired.
County officials denied Cox's allegations that Coffman created a hostile work environment and continuously used profanity. The county also denied allegations that Coffman made derogatory comments about Cox's age and visual disability.
Cox said in the lawsuit that he took early retirement in November 2009 based on his doctor's advice and his mental and physical health.
The lawsuit alleged that when Johnson's ex-husband, Winston-Salem Journal reporter Richard Craver, was speaking with Coffman in October 2008, Coffman told Craver that he understood why Craver divorced Johnson.
In the county's response, officials said Coffman made a "jesting, off-the-record statement, during a private conversation," that was similar to what the lawsuit alleges.
Craver said Tuesday that Coffman made his comments at the beginning of a telephone interview on an elections issue. The phone call was not a private conversation, and the comments were not off the record or said in a jesting way, Craver said.
The typical relationship between journalists and public officials is that all comments are on the record unless both parties specifically agree to go off the record.
The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and compensatory damages of at least $50,000 as well as punitive damages in an amount that the court sees fit. |
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