Essex County Sheriff Dept. employee files sexual harassment suit

SALEM ? An employee of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in Salem Superior Court Wednesday against the department alleging officials didn’t properly investigate her complaints of being harassed by a male coworker when she worked at the Middleton Jail over a five-year period.Kelly Pickering, of Merrimac, who worked as a corrections officer, is suing the sheriff’s department after her ex-boyfriend and coworker, Steven Nowicki, allegedly harassed her since 2002 when she broke off their relationship, according to court documents.The lawsuit also names Sheriff Frank G. Cousins and co-worker Michael Roche as defendants for knowing about the harassment and allegedly doing nothing about it.A phone call to Cousins’ spokesperson was not immediately returned Wednesday.Pickering’s lawsuit says that as a result of Nowicki’s sexual and verbal harassment against her, she was forced to change her home phone number once, her Sheriff’s Department-issued pager number three times, her cell phone number twice, her e-mail address once and her home mailing address twice.Pickering and Nowicki, who both hold the rank of Captain, began dating in September 2000 when they were co-workers at the Middleton Correctional Facility, her lawsuit said. Nowicki did not want the relationship to end after she broke it off in May 2002, and allegedly continued harassing her until the lawsuit was filed Wednesday.Among other allegations, Pickering’s lawsuit says Nowicki allegedly used a department-issued camera to take unwanted photographs of her as she taught a woman’s self defense class at the Peabody Police Department in October 2002. She also says Nowicki made a string of harassing phone calls and e-mails and “stalked” her at work over the past five and a half years.Nowicki worked at the department’s Middleton and Lawrence facilities during the time the alleged harassment occurred, the lawsuit said.The lawsuit alleges that when she complained to the department’s Internal Investigator, Michael J. Roche, he told her she was “lying and trying to make the sheriff look bad.” Sheriff Cousins was named in the suit because he “is responsible for the overall operation and administration of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department.”Pickering’s lawsuit also states that Nowicki created a website about Pickering and used the unauthorized photos taken with a department camera on the site.Pickering obtained at least one restraining order against Nowicki, which was issued at Newburyport District Court in May 2005 after receiving advice from a detective at the Lynn Police Department, the lawsuit stated. A few days before the restraining order was filed, Nowicki was transferred from the Lawrence facility back to Middleton.When Pickering filed a complaint against the Sheriff’s Department in July 2006 for allegedly not taking action on her previous sexual harassment complaints, she was transferred from her position at the Middleton Jail to another position as an investigator in the department’s housing unit two months later, a move her lawsuit called “retaliation” for complaining about the harassment.Pickering is now “traumatized” by the harassment and has caused her to become physically ill and suffer panic attacks, severe stress and anxiety, the lawsuit said.