NORFOLK — A Norfolk woman is suing a Japan-based electronics company for $2.3 million after her ex-manager allegedly tried to intimidate her into performing a demon exorcism because of her American Indian heritage.
A federal complaint filed in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Virginia on Aug. 29 also details how another ex-manager allegedly sexually harassed and discriminated against her for more than seven years.
Former Ricoh USA Inc. employee Patricia Lindsey claims that her boss, Robert Staton, sexually harassed her and tried to force her to quit her job from the summer of 2009 until she was fired on Nov. 1, 2016.
Staton worked as Ricoh’s Norfolk-area manager and was Lindsey’s direct supervisor beginning in June of 2009. Staton also allegedly encouraged another Ricoh supervisor named Pamela Vanover to discriminate against Lindsey beginning in September 2015, the complaint states.
Although Lindsey claims she reported Staton’s behaviors to the company’s human resources department 10 times, he was not reprimanded or fired. After every complaint, his treatment of Lindsey became worse, court documents allege.
The complaint states that Staton harassed Lindsey on a daily basis and that he denied her promotions and vacation time based on her sex. Lindsey said that Staton was trying to force her to quit her position at Ricoh through intimidation.
“Mr. Staton engaged in a continuous pattern of sexually harassing, belittling and bullying Ms. Lindsey because of his openly expressed discriminatory opinions about women,” the complaint states.
The work environment made Lindsey very anxious, and she began seeing a therapist in June 2013. By Sept. 2016, Lindsey’s therapist said she was having multiple panic attacks every day. After she was fired, Lindsey went into the hospital for two days because she was struggling to breathe and having chest pains, according to the complaint.
The sexual harassment included Stanton implying that Lindsey would get employee benefits if she performed sexual favors for him, according to the complaint.
On several occasions, Staton threatened to fire Lindsey, the complaint says. He also allegedly cursed at her and told her that she was “weak” because she was a woman.
He allegedly told Lindsey that a woman’s place is in the home, but that if they do work in management he likes them to wear tops that show cleavage, court documents state.
In October of 2014, Staton invited Lindsey to have drinks with him at his hotel, the complaint says. She refused the invitation and said that his treatment of her became worse from that point. About a year later, Staton told her that she’d be reporting to Vanover, and encouraged the new manager to treat Lindsey harshly, according to the complaint.
Lindsey alleges that Vanover did treat her harshly and made fun of her American Indian heritage often. The harassment included Vanover allegedly giving Lindsey a bottle of hair removal serum and telling her that the Indians “lost to the cowboys” because they weren’t smart, the complaint states.
The complaint says that in August of 2016, Vanover asked Lindsey to participate in a “pagan ritual” that involved burning sage to get rid of the demons in the Ricoh work space. Vanover insinuated that Lindsey was a demon, and said that she should participate in the ritual because she was an American Indian, according to the complaint.
Lindsey lost her job in November of 2016. Staton and Ricoh said she was fired for failing to report an incident involving an employee who made a threat in October, but Lindsey said she believes it was a retaliatory move because she’d complained to the company about her managers multiple times, court documents state.
Lindsey filed an administrative charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on March 6, 2017. On June 2, the EEOC issued a “right to sue” letter to Lindsey.
Lindsey’s lawyer, Jeremiah A. Denton, declined to comment on the case. Southside Daily was not able to contact a Ricoh representative after multiple attempts.
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