SAN MATEO COUNTY / Gorilla Foundation rocked by breast display lawsuit / Former employees say they were told to expose chests

KOKO-C-02AUG00-MN-HO--Koko the gorilla and her kitten. PHOTO CREDIT: RON COHEN/GORILLA FOUNDATION KOKO-C-02AUG00-MN-HO--Koko the gorilla and her kitten. PHOTO CREDIT: RON COHEN/GORILLA FOUNDATION Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close SAN MATEO COUNTY / Gorilla Foundation rocked by breast display lawsuit / Former employees say they were told to expose chests 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Two former employees of the Gorilla Foundation, home to Koko the "talking" ape, have filed a lawsuit contending that they were ordered to bond with the 33-year-old female simian by displaying their breasts.

Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller, both of San Francisco, are taking on the Woodside nonprofit and its president, Francine "Penny" Patterson.

Their lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court, alleges sexual discrimination, wrongful termination in retaliation for reporting health and safety violations, and failure to pay overtime or provide rest breaks.

It seeks more than $1 million total in damages for the two women.

The suit follows complaints filed by Alperin and Keller in January with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, in which they gave identical reasons for why they were fired: "I refused to expose my breast to perform acts of bestiality with one of the gorillas."

The lawsuit goes into more detail.

One example: "On at least two incidents in mid-to-late June 2004, Patterson intensely pressured Keller to expose herself to Koko while they were working outside where other employees could potentially view Keller's naked body. ... On one such occasion, Patterson said, 'Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples.' "

Todd Roberts, a partner in the Redwood City office of Ropers Majeski Kohn Bentley, which is representing the Gorilla Foundation, said the law firm was still reviewing the suit.

"But I can tell you that based on our review of the factual allegations and characterizations in the complaint, we deny those allegations," Roberts said.

A call to Patterson and the Gorilla Foundation was not returned.

The foundation, which has existed since 1976 to promote the preservation and protection of gorillas, is best known for Koko, who was born at the San Francisco Zoo on July 4, 1971, and began working with Patterson the following year.

Koko -- older sister of Kubi, who presided over the zoo's Gorilla World exhibit until he died last year -- now has a vocabulary of more than 1,000 words in American Sign Language, according to foundation claims that are much debated among scientists.

The subject of books, videos and documentary films, the hairy linguist participated in what was called the first interspecies chat on the Internet in 1998, attracting more than 8,000 AOL users.

San Francisco attorney Stephen Sommers, who is representing Alperin and Keller, has a transcript of that chat.

"There's a history with this nipple thing," he said, leafing through the transcript and pointing out the word "nipple" -- which he'd highlighted in pink -- each time it appeared.

The history, as such, might date back to Koko's mother, who reportedly did not have enough breast milk to feed her.

The suit, in any case, says that Patterson would interpret hand movements by Koko as a demand to see exposed human nipples. She warned Alperin and Keller that their employment with the foundation would suffer, the suit says, if they "did not indulge Koko's nipple fetish."

During at least three visits, the suit says, "Patterson communicated to Alperin that exposing one's breasts to Koko is a normal component to developing a personal bond with the gorilla."

The suit says the two women, who never did undress, also worked unpaid overtime and faced unsanitary conditions, including gorilla urine stored in the refrigerator where they kept their lunches, rodents in the food preparation area and exposed wires.

They notified the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which conducted an inspection last Aug. 5 and issued $300 in fines for various violations that have since been corrected, according to Cal/OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer.

The two women were fired Aug. 6.

Three-month employee Alperin, 47, has returned to social work and is seeking $719,830 in damages. Four-month employee Keller, 48, a longtime sign language interpreter, is asking for $366,192.

Gorilla expert Kristen Lukas, curator of conservation and science at the Cleveland Metro Park Zoo, said she'd never encountered a gorilla with a nipple fixation.

"This is absolutely a first," she said. "I've never heard of anything like it."

The zoo's publicist, Sue Allen, said, "Those of us in Cleveland would say: 'Only in San Francisco.' "