The Fresno Bee revealed<\/a> that a former Fresno police sergeant reached a $1.7 million settlement in a wrongful termination and sexual harassment lawsuit. In a work group chat, the ex-Fresno cop was subjected to sexual, racist and homophobic jokes and images.\u00a0<\/p>\nLa Blue sent a statement to Fresnoland, stating that Pine was terminated for performance issues, and that extensive documentation contradicts the lawsuit\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the evidence identified and acquired after Pine\u2019s termination, the FPOA and La Blue will take all necessary actions to defend themselves and vindicate their right,\u201d La Blue said in the statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pine is represented by local attorney Brian Whelan, who pushed back on the police union and La Blue\u2019s statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve received the FPOA\u2019s statement on the lawsuit. The organization\u2019s president is on tape blaming my client\u2019s menstrual cycle, calling her a \u2018f\u2014ing bitch,\u2019 and saying he was going to fire her for doing her job,\u201d Whelan wrote over email. \u201cAfterward, they lied about her to cover it up. That is not a misunderstanding \u2014 it is blatant retaliation and sex discrimination, and my client will be vindicated in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
The suit only names the Fresno Police Officers Association and its president Jeff La Blue as defendants.<\/p>\n
La Blue caught on tape, lawsuit says<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit filing, La Blue made sexual advances after Pine got a divorce a few years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Between December 2023 and March 2024, La Blue and Pine engaged in a \u201cromantic and graphic \u2018sexting\u2019 relationship,\u201d according to the lawsuit filing. During those months, La Blue \u201cengaged in repeated sexualized communications and conduct toward Plaintiff, including explicit text messages, handwritten notes, verbal statements, and physical (but rejected) advances,\u201d according to the lawsuit filing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe communications and conduct occurred in the context of workplace power imbalance involving the head of the organization and senior employee whose job security, authority, and reputation were directly affected by La Blue\u2019s conduct,\u201d the legal complaint also stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Pine sought to \u201creestablish professional boundaries and disengage from the sexualized dynamic,\u201d the legal complaint states that La Blue\u2019s demeanor changed, and so did Pine\u2019s work environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In November 2024, Pine told La Blue that she would no longer tolerate \u201csexualized conduct\u201d at work, the lawsuit states. Additionally, a colleague of Pine at the time broke down in tears while recounting to her and others the aggressive and sexual remarks La Blue made about Pine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That colleague of Pine \u201cwas terminated not long thereafter after having been the employee who first voiced alarm about La Blue\u2019s sexualized behavior,\u201d the lawsuit filing stated.<\/p>\n
Just a month after Pine drew boundaries at work, the lawsuit filing stated that La Blue made another sexual advance \u2014 this time at a retirement committee meeting inside a police union conference room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pine immediately pulled away, the lawsuit filing stated, to which La Blue reacted negatively.<\/p>\n
A few months later, an audio recording caught La Blue making explicit, sexist and degrading remarks about Pine, \u201cincluding calling her \u2018a fucking bitch,\u2019 speculating about her menstrual cycle being \u2018a fucking nightmare,\u2019 and stating that she \u2018goes through these cycles.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that same recorded conversation, La Blue stated words to the effect of \u2018I am going to fire her for this,\u2019 referring directly to Plaintiff asserting authority, enforcing workplace standards, and pushing back against misconduct. The recording reflects retaliatory intent expressed plainly and contemporaneously by the FPOA\u2019s President,\u201d the lawsuit filing argued.<\/p>\n
Pine was fired in August. The lawsuit stated that Pine filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department, which issued her a right-to-sue notice.<\/p>\n
Pine is seeking a jury trial, and the lawsuit\u2019s first case management conference was scheduled for June 30. Pine is seeking $1.9 million in damages.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake: According to a lawsuit filed in Fresno Superior Court this month, a former employee of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-156738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}