Two other complaints filed; they allege harassment, sexual assault of minors, failure to act by Ocean City Beach Patrol leadership
Editor’s note: The Ocean City Sentinel is not naming the Ocean City Beach Patrol lifeguards filing the lawsuits because of the sexual nature of the allegations involved, but is naming the leadership of the beach patrol, which is common knowledge and among the target of the suits, and one senior guard previously in the news. The Sentinel also is not naming the other lifeguards named as defendants in the other two lawsuits because the cases have not been settled or taken up before a jury, and because of the sexual nature of the allegations against them.
OCEAN CITY — The city settled a lawsuit filed by an Ocean City Beach Patrol guard for $135,000 and is facing suits from two more female guards alleging sexual harassment through sexual assault by male counterparts on the patrol.
In the settled case in exchange for payment, the guard agrees not to file any other claims or disparage the city and promises to keep the agreement confidential. She will remain employed by the city.
The Sentinel has learned that the plaintiff will get $74,165.30 and her attorneys will receive the remaining $60,834.70. The information did not come from the plaintiff nor her attorney.
The guard signed the agreement March 11, the same day it was notarized by Ocean City Clerk Melissa Rasner.
Asked for comment, Ocean City public information officer Doug Bergen replied, “The city cannot comment on pending litigation or on confidential settlements.”
The settlement also notes the agreement is not an admission by either party about the merits of the case and that “Ocean City continues to disclaim any liability.”
The settlement came after the lifeguard filed a complaint in Superior Court in Cape May County on July 21, 2021, against former senior guard Christopher Denn, OCBP Operations Chief Mark Jamieson and the city of Ocean City and the beach patrol alleging negligent supervision and an unsafe work environment.
Denn was fired from the OCBP in August 2019 after allegedly exposing himself to a female subordinate while both were on duty in a lifeguard stand on the Surf Road beach. He subsequently resigned as a physical education instructor at Mainland Regional High School.
The first count of the complaint alleged:
— “… a pervasive and ongoing complacency regarding sexual and harassing behaviors in the Ocean City Beach Patrol, creating a hostile work environment;
— employing Denn “as a senior lifeguard who repeatedly preyed on younger female guards making sexually inappropriate statements”;
— that on July 29, 2019, Denn “exposed his male genitalia and requested sexual acts from the plaintiff all while in the course of employment”;
— that “during the course of several years, members of the Ocean City Beach Patrol repeatedly preyed on younger female lifeguards”;
— that the city was negligent in its responsibility to monitor and supervise employee conduct;
— that the city allowed a “good old boys” network to exist without monitoring;
— and that all of the above caused the plaintiff emotional distress and trauma.
The second count alleged the city failed in its responsibility in hiring, training and supervising its employees.
The third count was that Denn “engaged in lewd and offensive behavior and assaulted the plaintiff … by purposefully touching his penis and showing it to the plaintiff without her consent.”
The fourth count cites Jamieson as being responsible for the training, discipline and supervision of guards including Denn and failing to do so adequately, “allowing a hostile work environment to exist wherein senior male guards preyed on younger female guards.”
The complaint requested a jury trial.
Another lifeguard
alleges sex assault,
underage drinking
At the end of November 2021, a female lifeguard who has since left the patrol filed a civil complaint in Superior Court in Cape May County against current Jamieson, former operations chief Tom Mullineaux, former senior guard Denn and nine more senior lifeguards and supervisors.
The complaint states that when the guard was 16, she was sexually assaulted, molested and violated by one of her supervisors who was over 45 years old at the time.
The plaintiff in this lawsuit alleges that since the summer of 2017 she and other minor and adult females were “continually subjected to a hostile work environment, quid pro quo sexual harassment, offensive touching, sexual assault, exposure to intimate male body parts, offensive sexual conversations, served alcohol at lifeguard parties sanctioned” by the OCBP and that the OCBP chief was aware there were minors or underage adults as the parties “becoming involuntarily intoxicated and subjected to being sexually groomed, groped, molested or assault by the male supervisors.”
The lawsuit alleges when the plaintiff and others complained about the misconduct and sexual harassment neither the chief nor Ocean City administration took action to remediate the hostile working environment and allowed perpetrators to remain employed.
The plaintiff specifically claimed the senior guard who was over 45 at the time invited her to another supervisor’s apartment where there was another minor lifeguard, that the senior guards got them drunk and one had nonconsensual sexual intercourse with her. The suit alleges both older guards — the other one in his late 30s or early 40s — engaged in either petting and/or touching the private parts of the other minor. After that, those supervisors spread rumors about the young female guard and continued to try to get her to go to “these lifeguard sanctioned parties.”
Other allegations include a different senior guard more than twice her age making her uncomfortable by asking if she liked older men and how he liked women under 20, and another who reached out via Instagram asking if she would set up a Pornhub channel.
The suit alleges by the end of June 2019, the sexual harassment and grooming progressed and that the one guard who allegedly sexually assaulted her was moved into supervising her zone.
The female guards also would get texts and social media posts of naked male guards and male body parts and a female guard was chastised by a supervisor and OCBP administrator for reporting that a male guard had exposed himself, the suit alleges.
This former lifeguard said the bad and inappropriate behavior was continuous, severe and pervasive and that neither Jamieson and Mullineaux nor the city took reasonable actions to stop it, failed to investigate it, and that female guards were discriminated against in promotions.
There are multiple counts in the former guard’s lawsuit that basically claims leadership failed by not having a system in place to investigate, supervise and/or monitor older male guards “to prevent pre-sexual grooming and abuse of minor female guards” and that they should have been aware of how vulnerable those guards were.
The suit demands a jury trial.
Third lawsuit alleges
similar behavior
by older supervisors
Another former female lifeguard who filed a civil complaint in November 2021 alleges similar behavior going back to 2014 when she was a rookie guard. Her suit names Jamieson, Mullineaux, Denn, the OCBP, city of Ocean City and nine other male guards who were senior on the patrol.
Her complaint states that from the summer of 2014 until she left the patrol seven years later, she “and other minor and adult females have been continually subjected to a hostile work environment, quid pro quo sexual harassment, offensive touching, sexual assault, exposure to intimate male body parts, offensive sexual conversations, served alcohol at lifeguard sanctioned parties … at supervisor’s apartment when minors or under the legal drinking age were present.” The suit further alleges that the OCBP operations chiefs had knowledge “these minors or underage adults were sexually groomed, groped, molested and or assaulted by their supervisors while on the beach and at these OCBP parties.”
The complaint alleges when she was 16 the future OCBP chief saw her drinking alcohol at a senior guard’s house, and that off-season she would be at that defendant’s house where there would be drinking games and she would end up in her bra and underwear.
The same supervisor would push younger male guards to bring “as many underage girls as possible” to his apartment and for doing so would get better assignments. The same supervisors as noted in the young lifeguard’s suit were involved in these parties, her complaint alleges. They allegedly encouraged the plaintiff to drink as much alcohol as possible and at one point when she passed out the supervisor climbed into bed and touched her without her consent, then went over to her friend and performed nonconsensual oral sex on her.
When the plaintiff turned 18, the one supervisor threw a big party celebrating the fact she was “legal,” but the police were called and she and the supervisor’s then 17-year-old girlfriend were told to hide and drugs were flushed down the toilet. The older guards claimed they had been tipped off before the roid by friends in the police department.
The female guard also alleged a different senior guard who was over 30 years old at the time performed oral sex on her when she was still a minor.
Her complaint also references more instances, including what happened to the lifeguard involved in the Denn case, through the summer of 2020.
Throughout this former lifeguard’s complaint are more instances of inappropriate behavior by far more senior male guards, ranging from sexual harassment through sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
And like her counterparts, her complaint alleges negligent supervision by the OCBP, the chiefs and the city in not properly hiring, training and supervising the defendants in the case. That gross negligence, the complaint alleges, allowed the defendants “to sexually groom the plaintiff, while a minor, and other minor females and entrapped them unwillingly in a sexual relationship …. Causing her severe physical and emotional harm, loss of her quality of life, the need for continuous psychological counseling, embarrassment, shock and humiliation.”
Her complaint also requests a jury trial.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff