[nfbmi-talk] public domain

[joe harcz Comcast]

Blind group sued over firings | detnews.com | The Detroit News

 

 

24 Jan 2009, 2:33pm

crime

detroit

Blind group sued over firings | detnews.com | The Detroit News

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Blind group sued over firings

Suit says organization didn't stop alleged sexual harassment by man put in charge of employees.

Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

 

DETROIT -- The Michigan Commission for the Blind has been sued for claims that its officials did nothing to stop the alleged sexual harassment and eventual

firings of four women and one man working for a visually impaired man licensed by the organization to run vending machines at the downtown U.S. Post Office.

 

The lawsuit filed earlier this week in Wayne County Circuit Court claims Thomas Foster Kent, 40, identified as a blind man, groped his female employees,

exposed himself, made lewd statements to the women and others and frequently demanded sex before he arranged for the firing of a male co-worker who had

suggested Kent should leave the women alone.

 

The women, three Wayne County residents and one from Oakland County, said the commission and its agents, who are charged by law with overseeing Kent's work

under his business name BW Express Vending, refused to take any action and suggested the women were lying.

 

Kent lost his contract with the commission in January of 2007 after his workers had been fired and filed complaints about their treatment with the Civil

Rights Department. Kent pleaded guilty in June in St. Clair County to two charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a young female. He

is serving 6-15 years in the Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson. ...