Three men are coming forward and accusing Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith – AKA California’s first female sheriff– of sexual harassment.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith was hit with the allegations in April after one of her accusers sent a retirement letter delivered to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department.
The letter was addressed to Smith and read: ‘You will recall how, on multiple occasions, you sexually harassed me.’
According to ABC 7, who obtained the document, the letter was sent by a 30-year correctional officer.
The former officer, who didn’t want to be identified, said through his lawyer that he ‘had experienced sexual harassment from Sheriff Smith and remained silent or largely silent’ because he feared ‘retaliation’.
In the letter, he claims that Smith touched herself in ways that made him feel “uncomfortable.” He also alleges that she suggestively held her police baton, which is awk.
Wait. There’s MOOOOORE.
Retired Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Sergeant Gary Brady also came forward with allegations against Smith, whose career at the Sheriff’s Department spans 45 years.
‘She undressed and she got on top of me and she wanted me to do some things that I’m embarrassed to talk about now,’ Brady told ABC. Brady said they were attending a convention in 1991 when the alleged act took place.
Brady said he was an undercover narcotics officer at the time of the alleged encounter.
He remembers telling Smith: ‘You know, it’s time to go. It’s time to go.’
Brady claims that after rejecting Smith’s advances, she retaliated by taking him off an assignment with the Allied Agencies Narcotics Enforcement Team.
Even more!
Former correctional officer Ed Albanoski told ABC that Smith was four ranks above him when she came onto him during lunch at Elmwood Women’s Jail in the 1980s.
‘And she had her uniform shirt unbuttoned down to like the third button, not wearing a T-shirt, not wearing a bra, and kind of exposing herself to me.’
Several years later, Albanoski was injured on the job and met with Smith about a job after being on disability for two years.
Albanoski told the station that he was ‘basically pleading with her to get my job back’.
‘She goes, “Well, you should have been nicer to me at Elmwood.”‘
“Nicer to me” = “more appreciative of my boobs”
“It’s all false, absolutely false,” she said.
She also released a statement through her spokesperson.
“These false narratives are nothing more than an orchestrated attack on the integrity of the Sheriff’s Office and my personal reputation.”
Albanoski and Brady said they aren’t planning to sue, but they did want their stories heard before the election.
Smith is up for reelection on June 5 for a possible sixth term as sheriff.
Look. I don’t know who to believe, but this is out there and I thought you should know.
h/t Daily Mail