SAN DIEGO — The Chief Information Officer for the Metropolitan Transit System says she was retaliated against for refusing to hide facts and hack into accounts during the agency's investigation into Nathan Fletcher's sexual assault and harassment allegations.
In a March 19 non-conformed lawsuit, Emily Outlaw says she was not given a raise and was placed on administrative leave after she discovered that a top MTS executive was aware of the sexual harassment allegations against then-chair Nathan Fletcher long before the agency said it was.
Outlaw also alleges that MTS Chief Operating Officer, Sharon Cooney, retaliated against her after she refused to have employees hack into Fletcher accuser, Grecia Figueroa's private messaging app.
For Outlaw, the scandal began shortly after the news that MTS employee, Grecia Figueroa had filed a lawsuit against the transit agency and its then-chair, Nathan Fletcher, alleging that Fletcher sexually harassed and assaulted her on numerous occasions.
In April 2023, Outlaw was tasked with looking into Figueroa's allegations.
The first task was to find out exactly when MTS was made aware of the claims against Fletcher.
According to an April 6 press release from MTS, as well as in statements to CBS 8 that same day, the agency was not aware of Figueroa's allegations until March 29, the day after Figueroa filed her lawsuit, Outlaw soon discovered the agency knew nearly two months before that.
Reads the lawsuit, "This press release was false. The MTS, through its Chief Human Resources Officer, Jeff Stumbo, had actually learned about Figueroa’s claims around February 17, 2023, through an email with an attached letter from Figuerora’s lawyer to him."
At the time, Stumbo had said that the email from Figueroa's lawyer may have gone to his spam folder.
However, Outlaw discovered that while the email did in fact get marked as spam, Stumbo opened and read it on or around February 17 and even forwarded the email to MTS outside attorneys.
"Outlaw told [CEO Sharon Cooney] the February 17, 2023 email from Figueroa’s lawyer to Stumbo had gone to his spam folder, but that Stumbo had opened and read the email and had forwarded it to the MTS’s outside counsel. Cooney looked stunned and abruptly left her office without any comment, leaving Outlaw alone there," reads the lawsuit.
Outlaw says that the second task that she and the IT department were given was to gain access to Figueroa's 'Jabber' messaging account.
The lawsuit claims that Outlaw immediately objected to Cooney's demands.
"Outlaw informed the MTS that she and her team could not do this because MTS's express policies prohibited this and to retrieve these Jabber messages would have required the IT employees to hack into Figueroa’s private communications," states the complaint. "So, Outlaw refused to have her IT team try to retrieve the Jabber messages."
By late April, as the Fletcher controversy garnered consistent media attention, Outlaw says her relationship with MTS CEO Cooney "deteriorated."
Her subsequent job performance review fell short compared to previous reviews. She did not receive a customary cost of living raise. In December 2023, Outlaw was placed on administrative leave for what her lawsuit claims were, "false and/or pretextural reasons."
Attorney Dan Gilleon represents Outlaw in her quest to hold MTS accountable.
In a statement, Gilleon told CBS 8 that MTS's actions against Outlaw will not place taxpayers on the hook for attorney fees and damages to Outlaw's career.
"The MTS leadership tried to crush Ms. Outlaw because she told the truth about emails her bosses said were lost. Ms. Outlaw's only mistake was thinking hard work and integrity would be rewarded, not cause her superiors to draw a large target on her back," said Gilleon. "This lawsuit will not cause MTS to halt the use of finger-pointing, back-biting, and deception as its first line of defense. Instead, MTS will pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to private defense lawyers to continue the dodge-and-weave, at least until its politically-bent leadership thinks the taxpayers won't notice when they finally take responsibility for wrecking Ms. Outlaw's career."
In response to the allegations, outside attorneys said they had not seen the lawsuit and provided the agency's denial of Outlaw's tort claim as its response to the allegations presented in Outlaw's complaint.
The tort claim denial stated that Outlaw "struggled" to take on new roles and responsibilities in her job and that she failed to meet "the expectations of the role."
In addition, the denial letter states that Outlaw insisted on working from home without approval and was never retaliated against.
