A judge has ordered a mandatory settlement conference for the parties in a suit brought by a Los Angeles police officer who alleges the department did not do enough after she reported to management that her husband, also an LAPD officer, distributed “intimate” photos of her without consent.
The plaintiff’s spouse, Brady Lamas, 46, is charged with six misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly disseminating multiple private intimate images of the plaintiff without permission. He is awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said Lamas shared the images with other people, including other Los Angeles Police Department officers, between December 2021 and January 2022. His wife’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges whistleblower retaliation, sexual harassment and failure to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and retaliation.
On Thursday, Judge Mel Red Recana directed the opposing sides to participate in the court’s Resolve Law LA Virtual Mandatory Settlement Conference Program, a virtual project through which qualified volunteer lawyers help to resolve cases before trial. The judge also scheduled a status conference for Sept. 25.
The plaintiff received numerous commendations and awards over the span of her multi-year career with the LAPD, but on Jan. 30, 2022, she “was horrified when she looked through her husband’s phone” and “discovered that her husband, also a LAPD officer, had been passing around sexually explicit photographs and sexually explicit videos of plaintiff to other LAPD officers … for more than a year,” according to the complaint.
Some of the officers in a group text with her husband made sexually harassing comments toward the plaintiff over the course of the prior year and she now had context for statements she previously did not understand, the suit filed Dec. 27 states.
The plaintiff reported the photos to the LAPD, was interviewed by the Internal Affairs Division and a criminal investigation ensued, the suit states.
However, two officers who had allegedly made sexually harassing remarks to her were not transferred as she hoped and the LAPD did nothing to ensure that any of the officers who it knew had obtained the images of her would cease disseminating the images, the suit contends.
The alleged sexual harassment rooted in the photo distribution continued into this year, the suit states. The plaintiff once more complained to management, which still failed to prevent the behavior, thereby encouraging a hostile work environment for the plaintiff, the suit states.
“The department simply did not care enough to do all that was necessary to protect plaintiff,” the suit states.
The plaintiff’s career has been “greatly damaged” and the ongoing harassment and retaliation will have a negative effect on her career advancements, according to the suit.
In their previous court papers, the City Attorney’s Office maintains the woman’s case should be dismissed. The office cites numerous defenses, including that the plaintiff’s claims violate the statute of limitations and that the LAPD had “legitimate business reasons” for their conduct regarding the woman.