SEQUIM — The attorney for two women who are alleging the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula ignored their sexual harassment complaints said Thursday he intends to file suit in federal District Court against the organization.
Gig Harbor lawyer Terry Venneberg, representing former employee Lindsey Richardson and current employee Jessica Borries, 27, would not comment Wednesday on when a lawsuit would be filed.
Richardson and Borries have said former club volunteer and board member Stephen Rosales subjected them to harassment by making inappropriate comments.
Rosales has vigorously denied the women’s claims.
Club board President Jerry Sinn has refused to discuss them in detail.
Intend to pursue
Venneberg said Wednesday the women intend to pursue those claims in court.
“The BGCOP failed in their fundamental obligation to take appropriate remedial action in response to complaints concerning Mr. Rosales,” Venneberg said in an email.
“We expect to begin pursuing those claims in court, where they should be decided,” he added, refusing to comment on when those claims might be filed.
Rosales, a general election candidate for the Sequim School Board who conceded defeat Tuesday, said the charges were untrue.
“If God stepped in front of me — I guess I shouldn’t talk about God — I would swear this didn’t happen,” he said.
“It’s totally false, 100 percent.”
Both claims were initially filed with and processed by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Complaints
Richardson, who no longer lives on the North Olympic Peninsula, had said in her April 20 complaint that Rosales made inappropriate comments to her about other women at the Sequim unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs and had screamed at her.
Borries said Rosales had made inappropriate comments about women and about her, according to her Aug. 15 complaint.
The EEOC notified the club that it had stopped processing Richardson’s complaint and that the agency had closed Borries’ complaint and discontinued its investigation, Sinn said in an earlier interview.
Venneberg said his clients requested notice-of-right-to-sue letters from the EEOC, which allows them to file a lawsuit before the agency finishes its investigation of the charges.
“It does not mean, in any event, that the charges were ‘closed,’ ‘discontinued’ or ‘dropped,’” Venneberg said in his email.
According to the EEOC website, www.eeoc.gov, once a person who has filed a complaint is given a notice of right to sue, the case is closed, and the agency takes no further action.
“It means we at the EEOC are not going to pursue it any further,” agency spokesman Rudy Hurtado said Wednesday.
Venneberg did not comment on why Richardson and Borries chose to end the EEOC’s investigation and would not make them available for interviews.
“All I can tell you is that requesting the right-to-sue letter is an option available to charging parties under Title VII and that my clients chose to exercise that option,” he said.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act includes a prohibition of discrimination based on sex.
Sinn did not return calls for comment Wednesday.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
