Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
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Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
Lawyers presented closing arguments today in Carlos Estes's sexual harassment case against the Illinois Department of Human Services. Yes, those services he says he was asked to provide were certainly of the human variety.
Estes says his boss, Teyonda Wertz, propositioned him and threatened to fire him if he refused to have sex with her. Silk pajamas were also involved.
At a time when Newsweek is wondering "[w]hy are so few women in politics embroiled in tabloid tales?", we've got a homegrown case right here, pretty ripe for the tabloid treatment. Estes lawyer says "a lot of people still believe that sexual harassment doesn't happen to men," but if even part of what Estes says happened happened, this case is proof it does.
Also, these are the only houndstooth silk pajamas we can find. And boy are they ever ugly.
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The verdict in is . . . Estes lost.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/859836,pj032508.article
Happygrl ... the system does let one create links in our comments; here is one to the article you linked to. Just insert the usual html for hotlinking, and it will work.
Let's see if we can read between the lines. While we are told that
"Wertz's boss, Human Services Secretary Carol Adams testified that Estes' firing less than a month later stemmed from him abusing rules about personal use of state-owned cars and had nothing to do with Wertz."
we are also told that
"Wertz, who makes $103,000 a year, also got reprimanded for having Estes run personal errands, such as picking up laundry and prescriptions for her."
Gee, do you suppose that might be what he was using the car for? The motive alleged seems more than plausible when we read that
"The chief of staff in the Illinois Department of Human Services said she initially saw nothing wrong with sharing her room with a male subordinate, but later realized it was "inappropriate."
Estes, 22 years Wertz's junior, shared her two-room suite at the Drury Inn in Springfield only because no other rooms were available, Wertz said."
Picture a male supervisor offering such an explanation of why he shared the room of a much younger female subordinate, and ask yourself how you would expect a court to respond to that. A double standard was clearly in play. As usual, politics trumps justice, and impartiality is nowhere to be seen.