Kaiser Official Denies Making Obscene Call Alleged Harassment Victim Acknowledges Family Dispute

Kim J. Brookshire, a supervisor at Kaiser Aluminum’s Mead smelter, pleaded innocent Monday to a charge that he made an obscene and harassing telephone call to a woman who picketed the plant as the wife and mother of two locked-out Steelworkers.

“The Spouses of Steel have done a lot of picketing at Mead,” said the alleged harassment victim, Jeanne Jokkel. Her son worked at the Mead plant and her husband worked at the company’s Trentwood rolling mill.

Although Brookshire, 44, allegedly made a reference to the “company” in a message on Jeanne Jokkel’s answering machine, she acknowledged in an interview that a personal dispute between her family and Brookshire’s may have contributed to the incident.

“This is clearly a case between two private parties that’s going to get resolved in court in an appropriate manner, but the company’s not involved,” Kaiser spokeswoman Susan Ashe said.

Brookshire declined to comment except to say that he thought it was his family that had been harassed, and “my job’s on the line.”

He could get up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted as charged in Stevens County District Court of using “lewd, lascivious, profane, indecent or obscene words” in a telephone call to Jokkel.

Brookshire told Judge Pam Payne he intends to represent himself, but would be too busy for a status conference next month because locked-out Steelworkers will be returning to work. Payne had planned to hold the conference in October, but changed it to Nov. 1. Trial dates typically are scheduled during status conferences unless a plea bargain is reached.

Jokkel, 45, and her husband, Paul, 48, live about three miles from Brookshire in southern Stevens County, near Deer Park. The Jokkels said they have been acquainted with the Brookshire family for eight to 10 years because one of their sons, Jake, and Brookshire’s late son, Jason, were friends.

The Jokkels said they and others recognized Brookshire’s voice in an obscene phone call to their answering machine on July 2, a day after an incident involving children of the two families.