Fired Veterans Home Chief Says Locke Defamed Him Governor Cited Sexual Harassment, And Wedington Denies Allegations

The fired superintendent of the Washington Veterans Home says Gov. Gary Locke ruined his career by accusing him of sexually harassing employees during his three-year stint there.

Harry Wedington says the allegations came from a few workers unhappy with changes he was making at the facility in Retsil, near Poulsbo in Kitsap County.

He denied retaliating against workers who complained about his behavior and said Locke defamed him by saying his May 6 firing was because of “outright sexual harassment.”

The governor’s spokeswoman, Marylou Flynn, said, “The governor stated the facts as they were and took the appropriate action.”

Suing the governor could be difficult, said Wedington’s lawyer, Michael Scholl. But he said he may sue the investigator Locke hired for conduct “worse than the Spanish Inquisition.”

The investigator, Jan Salisbury, said the number of people who complained about Wedington indicated a serious problem.

Wedington said 96 people talked to Salisbury, and only a handful accused him of sexual harassment.

“There’s not 90 people that have a problem with Harry,” he said. “There are the ones that were mentioned here, and that’s about the extent of it.

“There are the other people on the periphery who get on the bandwagon, but the vast majority know what I’m about and what I tried to make happen.”

Wedington said he might sue a nurse, Sheila Periquet, whom he accuses of getting other women to accuse him of sexual harassment after her pay was docked for reports that she failed to protect a resident from abuse.

Periquet has filed a claim for emotional and medical damage, saying she should have been protected from harassment.

“It isn’t like Harry Wedington can solicit sex from some employee, be turned down, and the next day decide he’s going to slap her with some crippling disciplinary action,” Scholl said.

Such behavior is “not going to withstand all those levels of scrutiny,” the lawyer said.

Wedington also denied having a sexual relationship with a nurse at the facility.

“I did get overly friendly with her, and I regret that,” he said, but “I didn’t have any sexual relationship with (her).”

Problems at the home are nothing new, Wedington said. He noted that several lawmakers wrote then-Gov. Mike Lowry in 1993, before Wedington was hired, about problems at the institution.