The three female Salt Lake City police officers who sued the department over alleged sexual harassment by a former deputy chief have reached a settlement.David Everitt is the chief of staff for Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker. He says the city’s Equal Employment Opportunity process concurred with the allegations the individual officers made against the police department.
“They were clearly in a position where they had been wronged and we entered into negotiations with their attorney to compensate them for those wrongs,” says Everitt.
Each officer received $85,000 dollars in the settlement. Salt Lake City Attorney Ed Brass represented the three officers. He says negotiations for a settlement between the officers and the department started a year and a half ago but really picked up speed after former Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank resigned under pressure.
“The city and the officers will move on from here and hopefully they’ll be treated according to their merits as police officers and not as people who made a complaint,” says Brass.
Two of the officers remain with the Salt Lake City Police Department and the third officer is now working for Unified Police Department.