The Town President of Cicero, Illinois is being sued for allegedly sexually harassing the woman who ran the town’s “Waggin’ Tails” animal shelter, after instructing her to lie under oath about the nature of their relationship.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, in early 2009, Sharon Starzyk wore an FBI recording device during several of her encounters with Larry Dominick. They were discussing Starzyk’s testimony related to another town employee’s sexual harassment suit against Dominick.
“He insisted I deny, and I said. . . I tell the truth and I lose my job, and I lie and I go to jail,” she said in her deposition. Starzyk added: “I patted him on the back and said, well, if I go to jail over this, you know I went for you. And that’s when I patted him on the shoulder because I had to get close enough to him to make sure that was on — caught on tape.”
After she was fired from her animal shelter job by the town, Starzyk filed suit against Dominick, claiming her firing was in retaliation for her testimony.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Starzyk alleged in court papers Dominick repeatedly groped her or touched her inappropriately and sent her text messages in which he suggested she should perform oral sex on a black man — using a racial slur — or engage in a threesome with two of Dominick’s friends — an unlicensed plumber in his late 50s, and the Cicero town collector, Fran Reitz. Starzyk said she showed the messages to people but no longer has them.
Dominick claimed in his deposition that his relationship with Starzyk was consensual, and that at the time he would go to her house and “play with her dog and eat there and once in a while whatever came up sexually.” Dominick took the Fifth Amendment in response to further questions about their relationship.
His lawyer argues that Starzyk is a “a jilted, former lover,” according to the Sun-Times.
Dominick’s troubles don’t end there. He was also accused in a lawsuit of improperly firing former town employee Merced Rojas for being Hispanic, and allegedly referring to Hispanics as as “spics” and “illegal f—— immigrants.” Rojas was awarded $650,000 in July.
h/t Gawker.
