Boss threatened rape and groped workers, feds say. Now Tennessee county must pay $1M

At least 10 women who worked at a county-owned solid waste department in Tennessee say they were sexually harassed by their boss for years before he was arrested on criminal charges.

Now the county is on the hook for more than $1 million.

Cumberland County in central Tennessee agreed to settle charges of sexual harassment and discrimination for $1.1 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said Thursday in a news release. The county was accused by the federal government of failing to prevent the alleged harassment.

“Today’s resolution, through settlement, will bring some measure of closure and vindication to the vulnerable women who were victimized by the egregious and abusive behavior in this case,” Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, said in the release.

The current and former employees included in the litigation will received between $50,000 and $190,000 each, court filings show.

Their one-time boss and director of the Cumberland County Solid Waste Department, Michael Harvel, is awaiting trial after he was arrested in 2018 on charges of sexually battery, assault and official misconduct, prosecutors said.

In a statement Thursday, Cumberland County Mayor Allen Foster said he created a human resources department and updated the handbook for county workers when he took office in 2018.

“The old policy... was not bad per se, but it was dated,” he said. “Employee training was also needed.”

Foster said the new policy gives employees better avenues to report workplace misconduct. He also said the settlement, which will largely be covered by insurance, is not an admission of liability.

According to a complaint the Justice Department filed March 8, Harvel served as director of the solid waste department from 2014 to 2018 and reported to former Mayor Kenneth Carey. Some of the women he employed were community service workers who had been assigned jobs at the waste department through the court or as a condition of their probation, prosecutors said.

For three years between 2015 and 2018, prosecutors said Harvel tried to kiss and grab women who worked for him, asked them for sexual favors, forced them to view or touch his penis, touched them under their clothes and made offensive sexual remarks.

He is accused of forcing one employee onto his lap and threatening to rape another. At some point, prosecutors said he also pressured at least two women into giving him sexual favors in exchange for employee benefits.

“Harvel’s conduct was frequent,” the complaint states. “Many of the women described his unwelcome sexual contact, sexual advances, and offensive sexual remarks as occurring on a daily or near daily basis or even multiple times a day.”

But the women were unsure how to report his behavior, and in some cases tried reporting it to Harvel himself, prosecutors said.

Others never complained, in part because they feared the mayor wouldn’t be impartial given his “personal relationship with Harvel,” according to the complaint.

One of the women eventually notified the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces civil rights laws pertaining to workplace discrimination. From April 9, 2018 to April 13, 2018, the EEOC received at least four charges of discrimination from current and former workers.

After an investigation, the EEOC’s Nashville office reportedly found their claims were justified. But mediation proved unsuccessful, and the EEOC referred the case to the Justice Department.

Prosecutors accused Cumberland County of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the county is barred from engaging in any further discriminatory practices and from discriminating against the employees who complained.

Cumberland County will also be required to adopt a sexual harassment policy and complaint process for reporting workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.