The two St. Petersburg police employees spoke on a colleague's behalf. Then, they say, trouble began.
By LEANORA MINAI
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 8, 1999
ST. PETERSBURG -- Two female police investigators plan to sue the city of St. Petersburg on charges the police department retaliated against them for speaking their minds.
The attorneys representing Officer Tonia Nave and former civilian investigator Patricia MacLean said Friday the investigators' careers were derailed after they testified in support of another police officer.
In the coming months, investigators with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will review the claims by Nave and MacLean and decide whether they have a right to sue.
Their cases, while separate, share a common thread: Earlier this year, Nave and MacLean testified at a hotly contested disability pension hearing on behalf of their supervisor, Karen Lea.
Lea won a $29,000 annual service pension after doctors testified that depression and stress destroyed her career. Lea says she was discriminated against because she had lodged sexual harassment complaints against police Chief Goliath Davis III and an officer.
Three days after Nave testified at Lea's disability hearing, Nave was transferred from her position as a detective in sex crimes to street patrol.
"Officer Nave was shockingly demoted to the patrol division and put on evening shift, a typical rookie assignment," her attorney, Diane Bailey, wrote in the letter to city officials.
Chief Davis said Friday that Nave's assignment was not a demotion.
"A detective position is not a rank," Davis said. "You can only be demoted from one rank to another."
He declined to comment further, citing pending litigation.
"They'll call it a lateral transfer," Bailey said. "Well, that's baloney. She's lost money, as well as stature. Many officers offered their condolences."
In the letter to city officials, Bailey also said she has been told by police employees that part of Nave's recent application for transfer to the intelligence unit "has been illegally destroyed."
"Clearly, the retaliation for her truthful testimony is ongoing," Bailey wrote.
MacLean, the civilian investigator in the sex crimes unit, also testified at Lea's pension hearing.
"She testified that Karen had been targeted and that basically she had been run out of the sex crimes unit," said MacLean's attorney, James Sheehan.
Sheehan said MacLean was not paid by the city for extra hours she worked to testify at Lea's hearing.
MacLean filed a grievance about not getting paid, Sheehan said, and submitted to Davis a memo that described her stress over Lea being harassed.
After MacLean's workload was doubled, Sheehan said, she submitted a letter of resignation, but later rescinded it. The chief refused to rehire her, and MacLean's last day was April 22.
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