Legal Question in Discrimination Law in Maryland
false accusation/sexual harassment/discrimination
My husband has been accused of feeling a co-workers butt, which never happened. This company has a union. The union rep had made a report that my husband felt his crotch in front of her. There are 3 women trying to ask the other ladies to make reports on him as well. (A few of them have told him they will have no parts of it.) He is 1 of 2 black men working among 8 women, all white except 1 black female. There has been general conversations before any of these accusations about how the union rep was jumped in her home by black people looking for drug money her son owed them, and now she hates all black people. On top of all this somehow his background info was released to general workers and they all know he has a criminal record now. He is currently under investigation for these accusations, but he is wondering what can he do? Nothing they say is true, but odds are against him...black man with a history of being in prison, working with women. FYI...I am a white woman, so my husband is not racist by no means.What can he do to protect himself? Or whatever he does, will it have less credibility because it will appear to be a retaliation?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: false accusation/sexual harassment/discrimination
This is going to be ultimately resolved by the preponderance of the evidence. If your husband has witnesses who will testify that he did not do the acts accused of and/or testimony as to a conspiracy of the witnesses against him as well as evidence as to the lack of veracity (and therefore credibility) of the witnesses against him, he will prevail. If the witnesses against him are seen as credible (truthful) and their stories support each other, and your husband is unable to attack their credibility, he will have great difficulty in going against the charges. One way to attack the witnesses against him as to their truthfulness is to show that they are biased against him because he is black. Perhaps he can unearth other instances of their bias.
Good Luck