By Ryan Voyles
Herald & Review
DECATUR, Ill. — A former Macon County Sheriff’s Office employee alleges she was sexually harassed in a complaint against the sheriff’s office that’s before a state panel.
The woman, a former jail worker, in 2012 filed complaints against Macon County and Lt. Tony Brown, now the Democratic nominee for sheriff in the November election, saying he kissed and touched her against her wishes.
The Illinois Human Rights Commission this summer dismissed the complaint against Brown. The woman did not appeal the decision in the 35-day window allowed under state law.
An administrative law judge in 2016 recommended both complaints be dismissed, finding the woman not credible in her accusations of a hostile work environment. While it dismissed the complaint against Brown, the commission has not yet decided whether to dismiss the case against the sheriff’s office.
Brown, who has been with the sheriff’s office since 1991, denies harassing the woman. He acknowledged saying a sexual comment, made after a group training exercise, that was later deemed inappropriate.
In an interview last week, Brown said he was happy that the administrative law judge ruled in his favor. “It still makes my stomach drop, to be accused of something like that,” he said.
The woman declined a request to be interviewed on the record for this story. The Herald & Review typically does not name accusers of alleged or proven sexual misconduct without their permission. Her Springfield attorney, Bradley Wilson, did not respond to requests for comment.
The Herald & Review learned of the allegations after being contacted by an anonymous source and another person on social media who both provided a copy of the woman’s initial complaint. The newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the state to obtain a full record, which was received Oct. 3. The record spans hundreds of pages and includes a transcript of the two-day hearing held on the matter in 2014.
Brown is facing Republican Jim Root, also a top lieutenant with the sheriff’s office, in the coming election. Root denies having anything to do with the information provided to the Herald & Review.
“Somebody’s got something out for him, but it’s not me,” said Root, who was hired by the sheriff’s office in 1996. “I’m not planning on retiring. I have to be able to work with him, even if I don’t win, so I don’t want to damage that relationship.”
When asked if he thought the attacks were coming from his political opposition, Brown said yes, but he stressed that he wanted to spend the final weeks of the campaign focused on a positive message.
“I don’t get into all the negativity and all that stuff,” he said. “The only thing I can do is focus on positive things ... and the positive change that I believe I can help facilitate within this community, so that’s my driving force.”
Brown pointed to the timing of the woman’s complaint being filed, six days after she resigned as a correctional officer. At the time, she was suspended with pay, the result of an investigation into alleged drug possession by her boyfriend. Authorities said she gave inconsistent answers.
The complaints were filed with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, which later that year forwarded them to the commission. The commission conducts public hearings on complaints of discrimination, and a judge can order employers to pay for lost pay, benefits and other fees if wrongdoing is found. Punitive damages are not covered.
Commission members were set to discuss the complaint against the sheriff’s office at an August meeting for which records were not immediately available. Christine M. Welninski, an employee with the commission, said in an email last week that the case against the sheriff’s office is pending.
William Kurnik, a Rosemont attorney representing the county, said his office would have been notified if the commission had made a decision in August.
“They looked at it, it’s on their calendar, and we should be getting an order any time now,” he said.
Commission officials directed other questions from the Herald & Review to spokeswoman Nicole Wilson, who then forwarded them to Illinois Department of Human Rights spokesperson Teagan Shull. Multiple emails and phones messages were not returned.
Kurnik said he expected the commission to follow the administrative law judge’s decision and decide in favor of the sheriff’s office. The allegations contained in the two charges are identical, he said.
“There’s nothing any different,” he said. “It would be legally inconsistent for them to have a ruling other than accepting the report and recommendation of the (judge) that the charge be dismissed.”
Jay Dunn, chairman of the Macon County Board, and current Sheriff Howard Buffett declined to comment on the pending matter.
Thomas Schneider, who was sheriff at the time and was among those who testified at the hearing, said the office “was named in a separate case solely based upon the fact that the office is the employer of Lt. Brown.”
“Unfortunately, the case is still pending due to backlog at the commission and no official ruling has been made regarding the Macon County Sheriff’s Office,” he said in a statement.
Harassment allegations
In legal filings and testimony during a 2014 hearing in Springfield, the woman alleged a pattern of physical and verbal sexual harassment from Brown, her supervisor at the Macon County Jail. She said the incidents began in March 2011, when she had been working at the sheriff’s office for about five years.
On several occasions, she said, Brown went into a control room where she was working alone, rubbed her shoulders and kissed her neck. In two instances in his office, she said, he placed her hand on his crotch, once after he had unzipped his pants. She said he also kissed her against her will multiple times.
The woman said Brown apologized after the incidents, saying he wanted to be sheriff someday and knew the behavior “looked bad.”
Several witnesses who testified on the woman’s behalf said she had told them about unwanted advances, but none saw the harassment occur firsthand.
The woman also testified about an incident at a training exercise in 2010 when she and nine other officers had a stun gun used on them. Brown recorded the exercise on his cellphone and told the woman later that the noise she made when the device was used on her sounded like an orgasm, according to the documents.
In testimony and filings with the commission, Brown acknowledged making the comment. The woman said Brown also asked her if that was how she sounded in bed, which he denied.
Upon learning of the comment, then-Sheriff Schneider verbally reprimanded Brown for inappropriate language, and no further action was taken, according to the documents.
Recommended dismissal
Administrative Law Judge Michael Robinson presided over the hearing, after which both sides filed additional legal documents in the proceeding. He ultimately recommended it be “dismissed with prejudice,” a legal term meaning the case cannot be refiled.
Robinson wrote in his 22-page report that, for various reasons, he did not find parts of the woman’s testimony credible. Specifically, he noted the woman said Brown had sent her several Facebook messages apologizing for his behavior. Another witness also said she saw a message matching that description, but no copies of the messages were presented as evidence.
Robinson also noted the timing of the woman’s discrimination complaint. The Decatur Police Department conducted an investigation into her boyfriend in April 2012 that included a controlled purchase of drugs with marked currency. Some of the money was later found in a safe to which the woman initially said only she had access, according to the documents.
The woman was suspended with pay after she was questioned by sheriff’s office investigators, who said they found inconsistencies in her story. Seven days later, she resigned.
In response to Robinson’s findings, the woman’s attorney wrote that the judge had overlooked or failed to consider evidence that reflected on Brown’s credibility as well as the woman’s. Specifically, Wilson wrote that the judge did not give sufficient weight to the testimony of several witnesses and failed to take into account inconsistencies in Brown’s testimony.
In the documents, Wilson argued that the woman told several people about the unwanted advances from Brown before April 2012, when the police investigation began.
Reason for delay
It is unclear why the complaint against the sheriff’s office is still not resolved two years after the administrative law judge made his recommendation, but Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner said earlier this year that the state commission had more than 1,000 pending cases.
Some had gone two years or longer without a decision, he said.
Rauner signed an executive order in June designed to cut down on the backlog by mandating coordination between the commission, the state Department of Human Rights and the Bureau of Administrative Hearings.
A new state law also went into effect this August that would restructure how the commission works, including turning some part-time staff to full-time to help streamline caseloads.