Some really dirty laundry comes out after NJ fire department lawsuit settled
This is is an article well worth reading. A sexual harassment suit brought by Kerry “Kira” Mansueto, a former female volunteer member of New Jersey’s Carteret Fire Department, was settled out of court last month for an undisclosed amount of money. But that doesn’t mean this one’s over.
Sergio Bichao, a reporter with MyCentralJersey.com, has thousands of pages of documents in the case and featured some highlights (or lowlights) in an article today (Sunday). These include a series of incidents the newspaper reports were never properly investigated and where no one was disciplined, despite confirmation that some of the incidents occurred. Among them, a firefighter who admitted texting a picture of his penis to Mansueto, a paid fire captain who evacuated a burning home without Mansuato and a firefighter who admitted lying during a sexual harassment investigation.
The article also featured this excerpt from the deposition by then fire chief Brian O’Connor, who has since retired:
Q. Are you testifying under oath that you don’t believe it’s inappropriate for a member of your department to send a picture of his penis to a volunteer firefighter or a paid EMT?O’CONNOR: I don’t know the legality of two adults exchanging something. It’s his contention that she asked for her — for him to send it, so.Q: Have you seen any evidence that she asked for it?O’CONNOR: NoQ: Has anyone ever contacted Ms. Mansueto to get her side of the story?O’CONNOR: I don’t know.
Sergio Bichao, MyCentralJersey.com:
Posting a picture of a firetruck on Facebook cost a firefighter several personal days. Making a crude comment online about the department chaplain got a police officer suspended.
But when a firefighter texted a female volunteer a picture of his penis, and then admitted under oath that he had sex in the parking lot of a borough elementary school, neither the fire chief nor the mayor thought to reprimand the borough employee.
That isn’t the only behavior that borough officials either ignored or abetted, according to a civil-rights lawsuit filed in 2011 by one of the few women ever to serve as a volunteer in the borough’s fire department.
Kerry “Kira” Mansueto, a one-time white-collar worker who ditched her job in the marketing industry in order to become a first responder after surviving the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, said she was subjected to persistent discrimination, pervasive sexual harassment and shocking workplace retaliation, including being left inside a burning building — and nobody has suffered any consequences.
