[box icon=”none”]
Earlier this summer Jamie Leigh Jones, former government contractor and employee of KBR, lost a civil lawsuit leveled against KBR involving an accusation of gang rape for lack of evidence. Now KBR is seeking $2 million in damages incurred during the process.
The alleged assault supposedly occurred in 2006, five years before the trial took place. During that time interval, Ms. Jones proclaimed she had suffered from several life difficulties related to the post traumatic response to the alleged assault. These include an inability to function and have normal relationships with men.
Ted Frank, poster at the well respected online forum “Point of Law”, stated in a posting after analyzing the court records reported on July 7th:
“The court has already thrown out Jones’s most sensational allegations—gang rape and being “locked in a container” for reporting the rape—out of the case for lack of evidence. The medical evidence isn’t very friendly to Jones, either. And her damages claims seem exaggerated: “At the same time Jones was telling therapists and psychiatrists that she was virtually disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder and could not work, leave the house, drive, or have meaningful relationships with men, she has completed three college degrees, including an MBA; gotten married; had two babies; worked as a teacher and now as a part-time college professor; testified repeatedly before Congress; gone on TV; appeared in a documentary; and started a foundation to support women working as contractors overseas. It’s not the résumé of someone as paralyzed by trauma as Jones has claimed to various therapists and psychologists.” ‘
The initial complaint of the sexual assault was preceded some time earlier by another complaint filed with the EEOC from Ms. Jones not long after her arrival in Iraq stating that she was the only female occupant in the barracks she lived in and as such was subject to sexual harassment.
KBR’s official statement regarding her initial complaint:
“In her EEOC charge of discrimination, Ms. Jones first claimed she was the only female housed in all-male barracks in Iraq; that she was subject to sexual harassment; and that her complaints to KBR went unheeded. After KBR produced evidence to the EEOC that there were approximately 25 other women in the same barracks as Ms. Jones, including several down the hall from her, Ms. Jones changed her allegations and said that she was place in “predominantly” male barracks.
With respect to Ms. Jones’ alleged complaints of sexual harassment, in its EEOC response, KBR produced a number of emails Ms. Jones sent to KBR employees in Iraq, asking if they knew anyone who could help her move up on the wait list and get into a private living container (rather than in a room in the barracks where she would have a roommate). She did not mention the need to move from the barracks because of a sexually hostile environment. To the contrary, in one of her emails, Ms. Jones reports that things in Iraq were better than she expected, and that she had met a lot of neat people.”
Jones has become a symbol of government sponsored sexual assault by much of the sexual grievance industry. The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Gilbert reported on July 7th:
““This case is bigger than all of us here,” Houston attorney Ron Estefan, a member of the plaintiff’s team, told jurors this morning. Big corporations, he said, are watching the outcome of the trial to assess their own sexual harassment policies.
Jones accuses KBR, a defense contractor, of sexual harassment, condoning a hostile sexual climate in Iraq, and of defrauding her by not disclosing that danger when she signed her employment contract. KBR denies Jones’ claims and has sought to raise doubts about her credibility.
Estefan asked the jury to award his client $145 million, including $114.5 million in punitive damages against KBR. Jones is also seeking about $9.4 million from Charles Bortz, a former KBR firefighter who she accuses of rape. Bortz denies the rape allegation, and has not been criminally charged for the incident.
Lawyers for Bortz and KBR said Jones was not drugged, and that she and Bortz had consensual sex in her barracks room in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Throughout the trial, both defendants have sought to portray Jones’ behavior immediately after the alleged assault as inconsistent with her claims, and argued that she has a history of making inconsistent statements that she blames on others.
Andrew McKinney, a lawyer for Bortz, suggested Thursday that Jones falsely claimed she was raped in order to get out of a year-long contract in Iraq three days after arriving there.
Jones has testified that she would donate any monetary award to her foundation, which seeks to help Americans who are victims of crimes while working abroad for government contractors.”
This will mark one of the few cases in which a former defender in any sexual harassment case has counter sued the Plaintiff for a significant amount of money totaling in the millions.
Sources:
http://rt.com/usa/news/iraq-rape-jones-kbr-823-075/
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/07/07/jurors-in-jamie-leigh-jones-rape-trial-asked-to-think-big/
http://www.kbr.com/Newsroom/Press-Releases/2009/10/07/Facts-About-Jamie-Leigh-Jones-Litigation/
http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2011/07/jamie-leigh-jon.php
[/box]
