Closing Arguments Presented in Conroy Sexual Harassment Trial

SACRAMENTO —  Saying the state Legislature needed to be sent “a message,” the attorney for a woman suing former Orange County Assemblyman Mickey Conroy for sexual harassment said in closing arguments Tuesday that her client was treated like “an object” then fired after complaining.

But a lawyer for the three-term lawmaker countered that many of the accusations of overt harassment leveled by Robyn Boyd had been blown out of proportion. The woman was dismissed because of poor performance and budget problems, he said.

Boyd, 38, is suing Conroy, his chief of staff, Pete Conaty, and the Assembly, claiming she was fired for complaining about an office environment that included profanity, sexual innuendo and unwanted physical advances by her bosses. Conaty and Conroy have denied the allegations.

Conroy, a Republican from Orange, left office last November because of term limits. He was trounced in a bid for a Board of Supervisors seat after his opponent repeatedly brought up the harassment case.

Carolee Kilduff, Boyd’s lawyer, said that during a yearlong stint in 1993 as a $6-an-hour office assistant to Conroy, her client was repeatedly subjected to harassment, then ostracized and finally fired after she complained.

“Think about whether this is the way you want your government to run,” Kilduff told the jury of eight men and four women. “If you don’t find for Robyn Boyd, you’re sending a message to Pete Conaty, Mickey Conroy and the Assembly that they can engage in this kind of conduct and get away with it.”

Boyd testified during the five-week trial that Conroy on occasion put his arm around her and allowed a hand to creep to the side of her breast. She also claimed that Conroy demanded frequent kisses during greetings and on one occasion boasted to a bystander at a political party that a smooch from Boyd was “a perk of the office.”

“Under our laws and basic human decency, she doesn’t have to put up with that conduct,” Kilduff told the jury.

Kilduff underlined how Conroy called Boyd and another female staffer “his bookends” as they walked arm-in-arm to events.

“A bookend is a thing,” Kilduff said. “It’s an object. That’s how he looked at Robyn Boyd.”

She also noted that Boyd said that Conaty on one occasion pulled her aside as they walked outside the Capitol and planted an unwanted kiss on her, a charge the former chief of staff denied during the trial.

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Kilduff noted that Conaty denied he had ever made sexual comments to any women in the Capitol, but that a former female staffer who had worked with him in the late 1980s testified that he often made obscene comments such as “wasn’t that you I saw in a pornographic movie last night?”

Even after being accused, Conroy and Conaty never expressed real regret, Kilduff said. “They didn’t get it,” she said. “They didn’t think it was inappropriate.”

Kilduff called on the jury to award Boyd upward of $200,000 in damages for her lost wages and therapy needed because of the alleged harassment. If the jury finds in her favor and decides to award additional punitive damages, the amount could soar.

“This case is more about justice than about money,” Kilduff said. “But money is the only way you can get justice. . . . The only way you can make her whole is by compensating her with money.”

Dennis Murphy, Conroy’s defense attorney, countered that Boyd’s complaint led to corrections at the office to assuage her concerns and that the former staffer’s biggest problems were at home. She was experiencing marital difficulties, and her son has attention deficit disorder, Murphy said.

Murphy also said that there were no witnesses brought forward by Boyd’s attorneys who saw Conroy or Conaty kiss her or make other unwanted physical gestures.

“We would expect there would be one independent witness,” Murphy said. “There is not one. Not one.”

He suggested that Boyd was irked because she didn’t advance as fast as co-workers but noted that she was a part-timer while some of her peers put in long hours at Conroy’s office for free.

Many of the jokes at the office, including a sign posted by another female employee reading “Sexual harassment in this area will not be reported, however it will be graded,” are standard office fare and not objectionable to most people, Murphy told the jury.

Murphy also said that Boyd’s personal notes and her therapist’s testimony proved that Conroy had never touched her breast. “There’s a big difference between touching and nearly touching,” Murphy said.

He also said that when Boyd complained about the office environment, Conroy and Conaty made changes and the problems ceased.

Murphy said Boyd suffered no economic damages after she left the Assembly. She was on paid leave until May 1994, offered half a dozen other jobs by the Assembly and then decided to leave. A few months later she got a higher-paying job outside the Legislature.

The jury is expected to get the case today.