INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s prison agency mistreated a
female employee when it shrugged off her complaints about workers having
sex on her desk and when it later fired her for having an affair with
an official, a federal appeals court has ruled.
In a mixed ruling
Monday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to federal
court in Indianapolis, which had ruled against substance abuse counselor
Connie J. Orton-Bell and in favor of the state. The appellate court
ruled in Orton-Bell’s favor except for her claim that the state had
retaliated against her because of her gender.
Orton-Bell said in
court documents that the atmosphere at the maximum-security Pendleton
Correctional facility was saturated with sex from its leaders on down.
The prison superintendent when Orton-Bell started working at Pendleton
in 2008 was fired for having an affair with a staffer from the prison
infirmary, court records said.
"From the second you walk into that
building, that is all you are hearing until the second you leave,"
Orton-Bell said in court documents.
In 2010, Orton-Bell discovered
that night shift employees had been having sex on her desk. The
internal affairs investigator allegedly suggested she simply wash off
her desk every day.
That was about the same time officials learned
that Orton-Bell was having an affair with Maj. Joe Ditmer, who was in
charge of custody at Pendleton. Both were initially suspended and then
were fired on April 8, 2010.
Both appealed their terminations to
the State Employees’ Appeals Commission, and Ditmer, a 25-year veteran
of the Department of Correction, was allowed to keep his benefits and
pension. Orton-Bell’s appeal was denied and in court records she said
she even had trouble collecting unemployment benefits.
The state
attorney general’s office declined to comment Wednesday. The Department
of Correction declined to comment to The Associated Press.
The
appeals court’s three-judge panel found that the "unending barrage of
sexually charged comments" made the work environment hostile, as
Orton-Bell claimed, and found that the state discriminated against her
by treating her differently than Ditmer.
"They were certainly
treated differently," the court said, adding that the Department of
Correction "fails to provide any reason it did not offer Orton-Bell the
same settlement terms it gave Ditmer."
However, the panel denied
her claim that she had been fired and treated differently in retaliation
to her complaints because she was female.