Another House Democrat was revealed to be caught up in a settlement on Monday night, this time from an incident in 2000 which involved firing a staffer in retaliation for reporting that she was allegedly sexually assaulted at a business that was connected to an important campaign contributor.
Andrea Payne, a former congressional aide for Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), filed a complaint with the Office of Compliance while she worked in the congressman’s New York Queens office after the alleged sexual assault, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported. Meeks, who fired her shortly after, admitted in a lawsuit that he did not fire her because of anything related to the quality of her on-the-job performance.
“This is an action to recover for damages sustained by plaintiff when Representative Meeks violated her Constitutional rights by retaliating against her, and ultimately terminating her employment, because of her sexual assault lawsuit,” Payne’s attorneys wrote, as reported by the DCNF.
The money that was paid to Payne on March 27, 2006 came from the U.S. Congress Office of Compliance, which uses taxpayer money to pay out settlements regarding allegations of sexual misconduct and other inappropriate workplace behaviors.
Payne claims that in 2000 she visited Flowers Physical Therapy, where she was treated for injuries she sustained in a car accident. The owner’s wife was described in the lawsuit as “an important campaign supporter and fundraiser for Representative Meeks.”
During her treatment, Payne claims, a physical therapist there “attempted to insert his finger into her vagina,” claiming that he was “treating a groin injury when her medical records would have shown her injuries were elsewhere.”
Payne pursued criminal charges against the therapist, who was ultimately acquitted after legal missteps were made in the case.
Meeks, who took donations very seriously, refused to pay Payne overtime after the incident ,and other top staffers allegedly mistreated her in ways “such as refusing to reimburse Payne for expenses, verbally abusing her, removing files from her computer, and requiring her to work more unpaid overtime.”
Less than two weeks after Payne filed a complaint with the Congressional Office of Compliance, she was fired by Meeks, who then denied her unemployment insurance, claiming that she quit voluntarily. Meeks then changed his story and claimed that Payne was fired for notifying the Federal Election Commission (FEC) of problems with his campaign finances.
The DCNF adds:
The Office of Compliance’s “mediation period” brought no resolution, so Payne sued Meeks’ congressional office and Meeks personally for $7 million. The law that created the Office of Compliance, the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA), “prohibits retaliation against employees for the initiation of proceedings under the Act,” according to a judge’s summary of the complaint.
It is not clear from the DCNF’s report how much money Payne received in her settlement from Meeks.
In late November, BuzzFeed News revealed that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) paid off a former female staffer with taxpayer funds after she claimed that he fired her for rejecting his sexual advances.
Conyers, 88, is expected to announce on Tuesday that he won’t seek reelection after news of the settlement surfaced and the congressman was hospitalized with stress-related conditions, the New York Daily News reported.