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When someone passed nearby, she said, Mr. X would call to them, yelling things like, “Hey buddy, what’s going on?” and would regularly swear as part of such interactions. Like clockwork every day, Mr. X would “rummage” through his things as he prepared to leave at 3 p.m., said Emond. She structured her day to avoid the noise by taking her coffee break at the same time.

Other parole board employees testified that Mr. X told loud jokes, made strange noises, “allowed himself to be flatulent,” and operated a white noise machine that was eventually banned.

Emond said she complained to her supervisor, Sheila Ouellette, and asked that one of them be moved.

The situation deteriorated on May 4, 2010, when Emond was on the phone with a colleague. Mr. X was making so much noise that she hammered on their shared wall to get him to stop. Minutes later, Mr. X came into her office and demanded, “What is your problem?”

According to Emond, Mr. X then warned her that “there is a line on the floor — and do not cross that line because I do not know what will happen.”

Frightened, Emond again complained to Ouellette, who offered to take the problem to mediation. Emond refused that overture and was given a new office, further away from Mr. X.

Ouellette testified that she thought the conflict was personality based. She did not believe that Mr. X was violent; she called him a friendly, awkward person who was ridiculed and mocked by co-workers, while Emond, she said, was a hard worker with a strong personality who liked “things to be done her way.”