Prosecutors Fire Secretary One Month After She Was Raped County Says Dismissal Of Worker Was Not Related To Her Attack

Gina Tiberino joined Spokane County’s sexual assault prosecution team in August, working as a legal secretary in an office where justice for sex-crime victims is the ultimate goal.

Two months later, the 32-year-old single mother says, she became one of those victims.

A month after she reported being raped, Tiberino was fired.

Her supervisor, Deputy Prosecutor Ed Hay, told her she was “too focused on your personal tragedy” and was “alienating” other workers, according to Tiberino.

Hoping to regain her job, Tiberino claims she has been discriminated against by an office that didn’t display sensitivity to her emotional turmoil.

“I find it ironic that this would happen to me inside an office where sensitivity to rape victims is so important,” she said.

County officials say they fired Tiberino because she didn’t handle her duties capably. They say that decision had nothing to do with the rape report.

In a recent interview, Tiberino said she didn’t receive any negative job evaluations before being fired Nov. 10.

She admits she performed her duties more slowly after the attack but insists she never missed a deadline or project. Her work involved helping prosecutors by coordinating much of the paperwork required in building criminal cases.

“I just want my job back. I loved that job,” said Tiberino, who previously worked for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office in Northern California and District Court in Power County, Idaho.

On her $18,800-a-year legal secretary salary in Spokane, Tiberino said she had just enough money to support herself and her three children.

Her attorney, Mary Schultz, sent a letter to county Prosecutor Jim Sweetser this week warning that if Tiberino isn’t rehired, she may file a wrongful termination lawsuit seeking punitive damages.

Sweetser said he didn’t read the letter and referred it to Deputy Civil Prosecutor Jim Emacio.

Hay, who heads the Special Assault Unit, wouldn’t comment on Tiberino’s firing, citing the threat of litigation.

Speaking for the office, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Martin Muench said Tiberino failed to do her job adequately and is accused of violating the county’s policy governing the use of e-mail.

Tiberino insists she never misused the county’s e-mail system.

Muench refused to provide specifics, but said: “If we had a waiver from her to release her (personnel) files, you’d see the complaints from other workers who regularly had to do her job for her.”

At the request of The Spokesman-Review, Tiberino signed a waiver giving the prosecutor’s office permission to talk about her work record.

Muench later said that waiver wasn’t sufficient, insisting on one that was notarized and specifically allowed public release of Tiberino’s personnel files.

Schultz refused, accusing the prosecutor’s office of “looking for excuses to avoid discussing their actions.”

She said asking for release of all personnel files was “intrusive and totally inappropriate. They have all the waiver they need to comment on what led to their decision.”

Tiberino’s emotional turmoil goes beyond trying to regain her job. Though she filed the rape report in October, Coeur d’Alene police haven’t arrested the man she accuses of raping her. She said she never met that person until the day it happened. She said he worked as a mechanic at a Spokane Valley repair shop where she took her car for service.

In early October, after picking up her car, the mechanic invited her to dinner in Coeur d’Alene. Tiberino accepted.

Later that night, after they entered a hotel room he said belonged to a friend, he struck her on the head with a clock and raped her, according to Schultz.

Tiberino said the attack left her scratched and bruised. She said the man drove her home that night, but she didn’t report the attack to police until the next day - after a neighbor visited her and expressed concern about her injuries.

Coeur d’Alene police Lt. Walt Roeske said the case remains under investigation. The suspect is expected to take a lie detector test soon, he said.

Two days after she informed police, Tiberino said she talked to Hay about it. The revelation was made “in confidence,” Schultz said.

But Tiberino said she realized that word of the rape allegation was spreading through the office.

Co-workers who had been friendly before suddenly became “distant,” she said. “Some asked some questions about what happened to me. From then on, people acted withdrawn.”

Hay was initially “supportive and helpful,” she said. He helped her obtain a protection order against the mechanic, barring him from contacting her.

A month later, Tiberino said she was shocked when Hay told her to clear out her desk and turn in her employee badge.

Without judging the merit of Tiberino’s claims, an expert on sex crimes said most employers don’t realize how difficult it is for women to return to work after being raped.

“Most employers don’t understand the impacts that follow - that such crimes alter every aspect of a person’s life, including how they do their job afterward,” said Darby Stewart, director of Spokane’s Sexual Assault Center.

Schultz believes the county violated federal disability law by firing her client.

Under the law, when an employer perceives a physical or emotional disability, the employer has the obligation to accommodate the worker and help them in the workplace.