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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, FEbRuARY 20, 2019
Interns: Kruse denied allegations
Continued from Page A1
Martin-Wyatt and Mont-
gomery also allege that Sen-
ate President Peter Courtney,
Legislative Counsel Dex-
ter Johnson and Lore Chris-
topher, who handles human
resources at the Legislature,
knew about Kruse’s behavior
and failed to prevent harass-
ment at the Oregon Capitol.
It’s the second lawsuit
against legislative officials to
become public since Friday.
Gail Stevens, a former attor-
ney for the Legislature, sued
Courtney and House Speaker
Tina Kotek. She alleged they
failed to protect her from retal-
iation by the Legislature’s
head attorney, Johnson.
Stevens first filed a com-
plaint with Christopher,
but the legislative human
resources director did nothing
to help Stevens, according to
the lawsuit. Under legislative
personnel rules, the next step
was for Stevens to file formal
and informal complaints with
the legislative presiding offi-
cers, Courtney and Kotek.
Stevens filed a written
complaint with Kotek’s office
in August 2016. Kotek’s
chief of staff, Tim Inman,
and Courtney’s chief of staff,
Betsy Imholt, responded by
email directing Stevens to take
her concerns back to Christo-
pher, according to the lawsuit.
“The
presiding
offi-
cers have a duty to provide
employees with immediate
protection from retaliation
and investigate their reports,”
according to the complaint.
“Inman and Imholt denied
plaintiff’s request for protec-
tion from retaliation.”
Stevens sued Johnson in
2017, alleging that he fired
her for raising ethical and
legal concerns about mis-
management in the Legisla-
tive Counsel Office and for
requesting higher pay for extra
work on personnel matters,
which weren’t part of her job
description.
She also claimed that John-
son downplayed the impor-
tance of Stevens’ cases,
including her work on sexual
harassment complaints. John-
son once referred to the sex-
ual harassment complaints as
a “soap opera,” according to
the Stevens’ most recent law-
suit filed.
Courtney’s office declined
to comment on both lawsuits.
Kotek, who is named only
in the Stevens lawsuit, also
declined to comment. Both
legislative leaders said they
don’t comment on pending
litigation.
Preventing harassment
Kristina Edmunson, a
spokeswoman for the state
Department of Justice, which
generally defends state leaders
against litigation, also said the
agency doesn’t comment on
pending litigation.
Last year, an investigation
into Kruse’s conduct found
he repeatedly touched women
inappropriately without their
consent. The interns’ law-
suit also names Johnson and
Christopher. Johnson initiated
five complaints to the Oregon
Health Authority over Kruse’s
smoking inside the Capitol
building, and he and Chris-
topher met with the agency
to argue that Kruse should be
penalized, according to the
lawsuit.
But neither took similar
steps to stem alleged harass-
ment by Kruse, or advocate
for civil penalties from the
Bureau of Labor and Indus-
tries, the interns charged.
Plaintiffs claim Christo-
pher, Johnson and Courtney
could have taken further steps
to prevent harassment, such as
making sure interns weren’t
assigned to work with Kruse
or setting up cameras in the
area of his office.
Johnson and Christopher
declined to comment on both
lawsuits. “The Legislature and
legislative staff do not com-
ment on ongoing litigation,”
Johnson wrote in an email
Tuesday.
Martin-Wyatt and Mont-
gomery are seeking $6.7 mil-
lion in damages. They claim
that legislative leadership
did not do enough to prevent
or change Kruse’s behavior.
Both were law students when
they worked for Kruse, and
the complaint alleges that both
were subjected to unwanted
touching and “sexual banter”
from the state senator.
Montgomery worked for
him from late 2016 to August
2017. Kruse, according to the
complaint, addressed Mont-
gomery as “little girl,” “my
baby lawyer” and “sexy,”
multiple times.
After talking to other leg-
islative staffers about Kruse’s
harassing behavior, Mont-
gomery moved her desk to
the office of another legisla-
tor, state Sen. Betsy Johnson,
D-Scappoose.
“(Montgomery) stopped
wearing makeup, wore baggy
clothes, and trained herself to
listen for Kruse’s footsteps so
that she could position her-
self in the best possible way
to be protected from his sex-
ual advances,” according to
the lawsuit.
Kruse denied allegations
that he sexually harassed the
interns and said they are after
money. “Part of the problem
we get into here in our world
today is when there is ‘he
said-she said,’ she is always
right whether it’s sexual or
not, and that is the kind of the
world we live in,” he said in a
phone interview with the Ore-
gon Capital Bureau.
Avoiding Kruse
Montgomery, who worked
for a group of lawmakers rep-
resenting the state’s coastal
areas, claimed in her lawsuit
that Sen. Johnson, other law-
makers and staff knew Kruse
was harassing her.
The day that then-Labor
Commissioner Brad Avakian
filed a complaint against the
Legislature because of its han-
dling of sexual harassment
issues, Montgomery notified
Sen. Johnson.
“Montgomery reached out
to talk with Senator Betsy
Johnson to give her a heads-up
that she was proceeding with
the complaint process, but that
she was trying to keep out the
Coastal Caucus, and did not
believe it would interfere with
future employment,” accord-
ing to her lawsuit. “Senator
Johnson was curt during that
call, and quickly hung up.
Since that conversation, Ms.
Montgomery called back mul-
tiple times and dropped by the
senator’s office, on each occa-
sion since Senator Johnson
declined to talk with or meet
with Ms. Montgomery.”
Sen. Johnson could not
immediately be reached for
comment.
Martin-Wyatt worked for
Kruse from January to April
2017. A few months into
her internship, Martin-Wy-
att obtained more work in
another state senator’s office
to avoid Kruse, who con-
tinued to touch her inappro-
priately. By late April, she
felt that she had to leave her
internship early.
“Senior leaders and their
advisers charged with protect-
ing the Capitol work environ-
ment failed to prevent or rem-
edy Kruse’s conduct despite it
being well-known for years,
and despite the foreseeabil-
ity of what happened to the
plaintiffs,” the lawsuit states.
“Defendants expressed cal-
lous indifference to reports of
Kruse’s misconduct, and fos-
tered an environment wherein
complaints were discouraged
with threats of retaliation,
legal exposure, and negative
career implications.”
The lawsuit alleges that the
office of legislative counsel
allowed a hostile work envi-
ronment to develop at the Cap-
itol. The office “engaged in a
pattern of discouraging open
communication about the sex-
ually hostile work environ-
ment at the Capitol, warning
victims that if they commu-
nicate about harassment they
could be exposed to claims
of retaliation and/or defama-
tion,” according to the lawsuit.
“Female employees were
discouraged or explicitly told
by defendant Dexter John-
son to refrain from discussing
their complaints about Sen-
ator Kruse and other harass-
ers, inappropriately chilling
women from reporting.”
The Oregon Capital
bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group,
Pamplin Media Group and
Salem Reporter.
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helping women understand heart disease risks, and actions you can
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2 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 14
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♥ Healthy Heart Doc Walk
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Join Providence cardiologist, Robert Morse, D.O., for a presentation
on heart health followed by a walk on the prom. Door prizes and
copies of Dr. Beckerman’s book, “Heart to Start” will be available.
10 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 23
Best Western Plus Ocean View Resort, 414 N. Prom
www.providence.org/northcoast
Agriculture: FFA ‘gave you that extra step’
Continued from Page A1
possible to get introduced
to the agriculture industry.
Students who complete
at least three courses in
the high school’s business
or natural resources path-
ways can earn certifica-
tion toward similar fields
of study in higher educa-
tion. Keeling hopes the
natural resources pathway
will help her as she attends
Linn-Benton Community
College and Oregon State
University, with hopes of
working in horse training
and rehabilitation.
“This will also help
if I want to get a job in a
greenhouse,” she said.
With less than 2 percent
of the working-age popu-
lation now in agriculture,
a vast majority of students
in FFA and agricultural
education are not aspiring
farmers. The organization
dropped the Future Farm-
ers of America name in
1998 to reflect the growing
diversity of agriculture.
“We’ve been trying to
keep relevancy by mak-
ing our curriculum more
hands-on” and career-tech-
nical and science-focused,
Mackenzie Price, state
treasurer for the FFA, said
in an email. “That draws
in more students because
they learn about lots of
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Marcus Rasmussen and Jon Clark depart the Big O Saloon &
General Store with their lambs.
industries within agricul-
ture (i.e. welding, horti-
culture, animal sciences,
business management) in
hands-on learning oppor-
tunities. They learn that
agriculture
contributes
to many industries and is
very diverse.”
Astoria’s FFA chapter,
one of nearly 110 state-
wide, is supported by a
small group of Astoria
alumni, including Charlie
Hall, an instructional assis-
tant at the high school who
keeps a flock of sheep on
the side.
“It gave you that extra
step,” he said of FFA. “It
was a huge community
service promotion, just
all leadership aspects. If I
wasn’t passionate about it,
I wouldn’t be involved to
this day.”
Rasmussen never used
to have an agricultural
background. But after
friends from church con-
vinced him to start raising
animals, his family even-
tually had to relocate from
the subdivisions of War-
renton to a farm in Lewis
and Clark, where he has
a herd of 10 alpacas and
three cows, along with
sheep, goats and chickens.
“When I grow up, I
want to be a cop,” Ras-
mussen said. “But I want
to have a farm and sell to
4-H and FFAers.”
Bunny: Mathews took questions from the class
Continued from Page A1
“You’d think that kids
would forget,” Johnson
said. “But there’s times —
she’s such an empath — she
says, ‘Mom, I just miss him
so much. It’s going to be
his birthday next month.’ I
knew that was one I couldn’t
let go.”
Johnson, who works as
a hairdresser, got help from
one of her clients, who
found an exact replica of the
Uncle Eric bunny online.
Johnson decided to stage a
reunion. She showed Ryan
pictures of the bunny and
told her the toy would soon
be coming home. She didn’t
specify how.
On Tuesday, Astoria fire-
fighters visited Ryan’s sec-
ond-grade classroom at John
Jacob Astor Elementary
School and brought her the
bunny. Johnson hoped that
besides being a fun surprise,
it might help Ryan see fire-
fighters in a different light.
Lt. Wade Mathews pre-
sented the toy to Ryan, who,
looking startled, immedi-
ately clasped the bunny
tight in both arms. She qui-
etly smiled and swung her
feet underneath the table as
relatives took pictures and
videos.
Mathews took a few min-
utes to answer questions
from the class and to talk to
Ryan. Later, he told Johnson
that Ryan was welcome to
come by the fire department
anytime to meet the staff and
explore.