Health Official Fired Over Alleged Harassment

COLUMBUS, Ohio - As Gov. Ted Strickland was calling on Ohio’s embattled attorney general to step down amid sexual harassment allegations last year, another harassment scandal was brewing in one of his own state agencies.
   
Female employees accused John W. Francis, the newly hired deputy at the Ohio Department of Health, of patting them on the butt, calling them pet names and threatening them with violence.
   
Francis, a former biochemistry instructor, was fired nearly a year ago. Reasons for the firing and the allegations of sexual misconduct that spanned most of his eight-month tenure were uncovered by an Associated Press review of state records.
   
Francis came to the state job from Columbus State Community College, where records show he also was accused of sexual harassment. College officials gave Francis otherwise stellar reviews, but ordered him to take sexual harassment awareness training and meet female students only in public areas after one filed a complaint.
   
Francis, 46, denies he acted inappropriately in either case. He said the accusations were fabricated by women whom he graded harshly, denied promotions or professionally disciplined.
   
“Honest to God, it was a politically motivated complaint (at the Health Department). I never did anything that was in it,“ Francis said in a telephone interview. “I went in there as a good person, in good faith, to do good work for the state of Ohio. This is what I got.“
   
With no witnesses, Columbus State could not determine whether student Adrien Briggs’ allegation that Francis trapped her in his office, propositioned her and fondled her feet were true. Briggs later filed, then dropped, a lawsuit in federal court.
   
At the 1,300-employee Health Department, however, an investigation substantiated most of the allegations lodged against Francis. State investigative records show Francis’ alleged acts at the Health Department began within a week of his arrival in March 2008 as deputy of performance improvement.
   
Women in the Vital Statistics section told an outside investigator that Francis stared at their chests, looked down their shirts, called them “babe,“ “hot” or “my queen” and solicited frequent hugs, sometimes behind his closed office door.
   
One of the women told investigator Joan Olivieri, enlisted from the state Department of Youth Services, that Francis “rubbed her head, patted her butt and told her ‘everything was going to be OK’ “ after telling her she didn’t get a promotion.
   
Employees also said Francis spoke of crushing people like cockroaches and threatened one woman, saying he would “slit her throat.“
   
Olivieri also concluded Francis gave her “incomplete, false or misleading information” when interviewed.
   
Though Francis continued to maintain the accusations were retaliatory, state Health Director Alvin Jackson fired him Nov. 21, 2008, making him among seven top aides to Jackson who were fired or transferred or who resigned during the past 18 months. They include two chiefs of staff and Jackson’s chief financial officer, lead lawyer and legislative director. Jackson hand-picked many of them.
   
Jackson told the AP in an interview that he didn’t know of allegations in Francis’ past when he hired him. He first found out in August 2008, Jackson said, when a copy of Briggs’ lawsuit showed up anonymously at the agency.
   
A subsequent separate investigation concluded that four Health Department managers or supervisors had earlier knowledge of harassment by Francis but took no action. The review found the managers’ inaction violated an agency anti-harassment and anti-discrimination directive that says harassment must be immediately reported.
   
Spokesman Robert Jennings said the department trained managers agencywide on harassment reporting guidelines as a result of the investigation. No other discipline resulted.
   
Jackson, who issued a memo to Francis after the lawsuit surfaced, was not questioned as part of that probe. His personnel director, Didi Anekwe, told the investigator that he led a by-the-book inquiry.
   
“I feel damn good about what I did,“ Anekwe said. “I have no regrets.“
   
Strickland spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said the governor’s staff was kept apprised of the Francis investigation as it was progressing last year. Jackson followed appropriate procedure by suspending, investigating and then firing Francis, she said.
   
Francis’ questionable encounters began as Strickland led his successful charge to force then-Attorney General Marc Dann to resign. The governor said then that Dann was rendered so ineffective by fallout from a sexual harassment scandal in his office that he must step down or face impeachment.
   
Internal investigators in the Dann case uncovered an atmosphere the Attorney General’s office rife with inappropriate staff-subordinate relationships, heavy drinking and harassing and threatening behavior by a supervisor, Anthony Gutierrez. Dann also admitted an affair with a staffer.
   
The sexual harassment scandal that was engulfing Dann’s office was not lost on one female health department employee. She told Olivieri she tried to use it to discourage Francis’ advances.
   
“This is not a hugging culture and people might get the wrong idea with all this hugging, especially in light of what is happening at the attorney general’s office,“ the woman recalled telling Francis.
   
“Let’s just be professional and straightforward in our demeanor. It will be better for both of us.“

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