Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner the defendant in a sexual harrassment suit against him filed by Stacy McKenzie, moved towards the witness stand where he re-testified on Monday, March 28, 2016. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

After deliberating for a little more than two hours, a San Diego jury determined Wednesday that former Mayor Bob Filner had harassed a longtime city parks employee because of her gender, but the panel found the harassment was neither serious nor pervasive.

The San Diego Superior Court jury also determined that no sexual battery had occurred during the April 2013 incident, in which Stacy McKenzie claimed the then-mayor had touched her breast and buttocks during an incident at a Mission Bay park.

McKenzie, 52, was not awarded damages.


Her lawyer, Dan Gilleon, had argued that McKenzie felt physically threatened on April 21, 2013, when she met the mayor at a weekend event, “Clairemont Days.” It was a feeling, Gilleon said, that interfered with her work long afterward.

× Filner Verdict

“This case is about abuse of power,” he told the jury during his closing arguments Wednesday morning.

But lawyers for Filner and the city, which was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, argued that McKenzie had failed to show she suffered ongoing harm as a result of her encounter with Filner. The lawyers noted that when McKenzie told coworkers about the incident, she called it “creepy” and said the mayor had acted “like a stupid guy.”


Filner, 73, resigned from the mayor’s office in August 2013 after a flurry of sexual harassment allegations that eventually led to convictions on felony and misdemeanor charges. He was not in the downtown courtroom when the verdicts were read.

Outside the courtroom, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said his office reviewed each of the cases that arose out of the Filner scandal and worked to settle those cases in which he and his deputies felt there was evidence of sexual harassment. The city and the former mayor have paid more than $1 million to settle five of seven lawsuits.

“We tried to make justice and I think we did that,” he said.

Goldsmith said there were two cases, both represented by Gilleon, that officials felt did not include facts that rose to the level of “legal sexual harassment for which you get money.” McKenzie’s was one of them; another is still pending.


Deputy City Attorney George Schaefer, who led the defense team, said he had worked personally with McKenzie and called her an “outstanding professional” who has worked for the city for 35 years.

“We regret the unprofessional conduct that she did encounter,” Schaefer continued. “We do believe, however, that the jury’s verdict was fair and just based on the evidence.”

The attorney said he was surprised that the verdict came back so quickly, but noted there was compelling evidence — including several of McKenzie’s own Facebook posts — that showed she was not severely traumatized by what happened to her.

The jurors did not answer questions from reporters immediately after the verdicts were read. They left the courthouse as soon as the judge dismissed them from service.


McKenzie left court immediately as well. One of her lawyers, Manuel Corrales Jr. said he had not had much time to talk to his client after the verdicts, but he could say she was disappointed.

“There was a lot of disputed evidence as to whether or not she did feel (Filner’s) arm touch her breast and his body touch her buttocks,” Corrales said outside the courtroom. “We had an eyewitness, a coworker, who we thought was very credible, who said that she did see the arm touch the breast and she did see his (body) touch her back.”

Apparently, the jury did not believe that was enough to prove sexual battery. However, the panel voted unanimously that Filner had harassed McKenzie because she is a woman.

“I think it was an acknowledgment that there was harassment, it just didn’t rise to the level of pervasive and severe,” Corrales said.


According to her testimony in the civil trial, McKenzie approached Filner at the April 21, 2013 event, intending to introduce herself to the newly-elected mayor. She said Filner made a comment about having to talk to a “beautiful woman” whenever he sees one, then asked if she was married or had a boyfriend.

She told him she was divorced.

McKenzie said Filner asked her out to lunch and made it clear, while grabbing her wrists, that the invitation was for a date, not business. She said she the mayor’s behavior made her uncomfortable.

Moments later, as McKenzie recounted what had just happened to her to a couple of coworkers, the mayor came up behind her and hooked his arm around her neck— a maneuver she described as a chokehold. While stroking McKenzie’s left arm with one hand, Filner let his other arm drop to her chest, brushing or grazing her breast, she said.


“I felt violated,” she testified last week. “I felt really small and insignificant.”

Gilleon told the jury that McKenzie, a regional director in the San Diego’s parks and recreation department, avoided answering calls in her office for months after the incident. A single mother, she feared losing her job as a result, and the possibility of not being able to provide for her two children.

“She had a lot to lose,” Gilleon said. He asked the jury to consider awarding damages of $170,800 or more for medical expenses, as well as past and future mental suffering, inconvenience, anxiety, humiliation and emotional distress.

But the city’s lawyers said McKenzie went back to work right away, and even joked about it in emails with a coworker. When she did report the incident to a human resources representative in July 2013, the city responded appropriately.


“There was nothing in that office that was hostile or abusive towards Ms. McKenzie,” Schaefer said in his closing argument.

Schaefer pointed to personal photos McKenzie had posted on Facebook that showed her smiling with friends and family in the months after the incident with Filner, and an image of her appearing with Gilleon on a TV news broadcast.

“This person is a well-adjusted, happy person,” Schaefer said.

Filner, a former 10-term congressman, stepped down from his post as mayor after more than a dozen women came forward during the summer of 2013 with allegations of sexual harassment. He pleaded guilty in October of that year to felony false imprisonment and two counts of misdemeanor battery for incidents involving three women at separate public events.


McKenzie was not part of the criminal case.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner watches as the jury in his sexual battery and harassment civil trial arrives in San Diego County Superior Court. Parks and Recreation Department employee Stacy McKenzie is the plaintiff in trial stemming from and incident (Howard Lipin)

PREVIOUS: