A city parks employee who claims former mayor Bob Filner grabbed her, put her in a headlock and rubbed her breasts in front of witnesses during a public event has filed a lawsuit against him.
\nCity Park and Recreation Department district manager Stacy McKenzie said she was approached by Filner who asked her out on a date, then followed up with inappropriate sexual advances at the April 21 Clairemont Day at the Bay event at DeAnza Cove in Mission Bay.
\n“We\u2019re asking for $500,000 in damages,” said McKenzie\u2019s attorney, Dan Gilleon, who also commissioned the creation of an animated sequence re-creating the alleged incident that was posted on the U-T San Diego\u2019s website.
\nGilleon said the events at the park were witnessed by two park rangers.
\nNoting use of computer animation is “fairly cutting edge for sexual-harassment lawsuits,” Gilleon said it “tells Stacy\u2019s story and is just a starting point,” adding “we downplayed some of the more severe acts by Filner \u2026 The story and animation will be developed as depositions occur \u2026 Sexual harassment usually occurs behind closed doors, when no cameras are around.\u00a0We hope the employers out there who regularly sexually harass their employees with impunity will think twice when they realize their actions may end up on a screen in front a jury someday in the form of an animation.”\u00a0
\nMcKenzie said she was the 14th woman to initially come forward several months ago with accusations of sexual harassment by Filner, which ultimately led to his resignation as mayor in August. She said she decided to take the next step and file a lawsuit because she hoped it would have a “chilling effect” on sexual harassment.
\n“If this ordeal and what\u2019s being played out in the media detours at least one man \u2014 or woman \u2014 who might be a sexual harasser and make them change their ways, or makes one sexually harassed victim know they didn\u2019t do anything wrong, that it wasn\u2019t their fault, then I will have accomplished something,” McKenzie said.
\nOf the purpose of the computer animation, McKenzie said, “Hopefully, it will curb this behavior, change things a bit so people aren\u2019t so afraid to speak up.”
\nNoting it was her belief that Filner and others in public office have “done this for awhile (harassment),” McKenzie said she hoped coming forward would make it easier for others in similar circumstances to “speak up without fear of it reflecting on their jobs or on job promotions.”
\nFilner attorney Harvey Berger declined comment, while another of the former mayor\u2019s attorneys, Jerry Coughlan, could not be reached for comment.
\nAt least 20 women have come forward alleging Filner made inappropriate\u00a0advances toward them during his years as a political officeholder.
\nMckenzie\u2019s lawsuit is the second to be filed against the ex-mayor whose former\u00a0communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson, filed a $1.5 million suit against him and the city.?Filner has also pleaded guilty to sexually harassing three women while mayor. He was sentenced to probation and three months home confinement.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A city parks employee who claims former mayor Bob Filner grabbed her, put her in a headlock and rubbed her breasts in front of witnesses during a public event has filed a lawsuit against him. City Park and Recreation Department district manager Stacy McKenzie said she was approached by Filner who asked her out on […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":278555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Second lawsuit alleging harassment by Filner filed by city park employee","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}