Louisiana Voice

Anyone can file a lawsuit. For proof of that, just check the court filings in just about any court at any level – municipal, small claims, state district or federal court.

Most never actually make it to trial, and that’s a good thing. Otherwise, court dockets would be even more crowded than they are already.

Many are dismissed for lack of merit or a lack of legal standing. Others are quietly settled. Of the latter, far too many of the settlement agreements are sealed by the court. That’s especially true of litigation against state or local government – like the spate of settlements negotiated on behalf of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, for example. It would seem the public has a right to know how its tax dollars are spent.

LouisianaVoice takes the position that settlement of these case should be open to the public.

All that aside, an interesting action has been filed in the Western District of U.S. District Court in Alexandria against the Alexandria City Marshal’s office, the city marshal and several of his deputies personally.

If even half of what former deputy marshal Patricia “Kay” Whatley claims is true, the entire office should be cleared out, scrubbed down with bleach or Lysol and re-staffed by individuals who have at least a passing familiarity with what constitutes sexual harassment.

Again, if her claims are substantiated, that office is populated by a bunch of moronic high school sophomores who still giggle when the science teacher discusses the planet Uranus or a hoar frost.

We make no claim as to the authenticity of Whatley’s claims but the pattern of behavior and retaliation she describes in her federal lawsuit is disgusting and far too familiar.

The alleged tasing of her buttocks, followed by subtle threats of repeating the offense, is bad enough but the suggestions and requests she describes are repulsive and even complaints to City Marshall Jerrome Hopewell which she said were met with retaliation and assignment to menial chores were actions about which you would expect adult men to know better.

Moreover, she claims that two fellow deputies who befriended her and who witnessed the harassment, were subsequently fired by Hopewell.

One thing that is certain is Whatley’s claim that Hopewell disciplined her in writing on Jan. 13, 2020, the day that she filed an EEOC charge against the office. In that letter, which was included in the filing of the lawsuit, Hopewell instructed her to cease “disrupting” the city marshal’s office with threats of legal action.

Also named as defendants were Chief Deputy Steve Boeta and deputies Harry Robertson and Chris Pruitt, along with several unidentified individuals.

In one Catch-22-like incident, Whatley was assigned to manning the front desk, entrance and metal detector. Despite having completed firearms training at the Alexandria Police Academy, her weapon was denied permission to wear a gun. But when she returned to work after a second knee injury (both suffered while attending the Alexandria Police Academy), she was told she could not return to the front desk because she did not have a firearm.

Whatley claims in her petition that:

• Boeta would approach her from behind and give her unwanted shoulder rubs and hold his body against hers.
• Pruitt asked her if he could touch her breasts and requested that she sit on his face.
• Robertson commented that “a girl with clean feet takes care of her vagina” and commented to her and others that he believed she shaved her vagina.
• Pruitt and Robertson once shoved her against a wall and Pruitt used a taser on her right buttock.
• Deputy Butch MacKey witnessed the tasing incident and was subsequently fired by Hopewell, who instructed remaining staff members to avoid contact with Whatley.
• Robertson, in front of other employees, announced to Whatley that he had deleted nude photos of her that she’d sent him. She claims in her lawsuit she never sent such photos to Robertson or anyone else.
• Pruitt entered her office that same day, Dec. 10, 2019, and announced that the FBI was after him and he needed her help to “hide my wiener.”
• Both Pruitt and Robertson made requests to see her breasts.
• Robertson asked her to unbutton her shirt and suggested she would like being handcuffed and said that he had taken his “blue pill.”

Whatley submitted her resignation on Feb. 4, 2020, because of the “stress of being subject to a hostile work environment…”

Her attorney, Hope Phelps of Most & Associates of New Orleans said, “It is alarming to see a law enforcement agency normalize the sexual harassment and physical abuse of a female employee. The perpetrators are still employed, armed, often tasked with showing up at the homes of vulnerable people – and this is how they treated one of their own. We will hold them to account in this case.”

To read Whatley’s entire petition, including Hopewell’s disciplinary letter, click here: