An employee with the City of Riviera Beach is suing the city and two city officials, former Deputy City Manager Danny Jones and former Public Works Director Brent Johnson, over sexual harassment allegations.
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Kimberly Scott alleges that she has suffered a long history of abuse during her employment with the city that started in 2004.
According to the lawsuit, in 2016 her then-supervisor, Johnson, began repeatedly assaulting her.
The lawsuit states Johnson physically grabbed her, pulled her hair, held her against him, and reached down her pants, grabbing her undergarments.
These alleged actions took place during working hours on city property.
According to the lawsuit, when Scott refused his advances Johnson in turn wrote up Scott.
In 2015 Scott was at a work function with her coworkers.
When she was in the parking lot, then-acting City Manager Danny Jones allegedly came up to her, exposed himself, made lewd comments and asked Scott to perform oral sex on him.
When she walked away, the lawsuit reads Jones grabbed hold of her, wrapped his arm around Scott’s neck, and tried to force her to bend over.
She got away but the following day Jones allegedly approached Scott at work and allegedly threatened her not to to report what happened.
In March of 2017, Jonathan Evans was hired as city manager.
Scott said she met with Evans and told him what had happened and he then launched an internal investigation by an outside group into both Jones and Johnson.
As a result of those investigations, Jones was forced to resign and Johnson was suspended from work and eventually resigned under pressure in December 2017.
A WPTV investigation found the city paid Johnson $51,000 while he was on paid administrative leave.
In mid September 2017, Scott said she went to Councilwoman Lynne Hubbard and spoke to her about the hostile work environment at the city.
According to the lawsuit, Hubbard did not provide assistance to her but told Scott she needed to get rid of Evans because he would bankrupt the city.
A week later Evans was fired by council for undisclosed reasons.
The lawsuit goes on to say that “clearly, the decision to terminate Evans was mate, at least in part, as a result of his actions to investigate” these city officials.
