A former federal prosecutor in Alaska has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice after claiming she was retaliated against for reporting a U.S. District Court judge’s sexual misconduct.
The report led to an investigation and Judge Joshua Kindred’s resignation in July.
The terms of the settlement, including any payout, were unclear Wednesday.
In a written statement Wednesday, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced that, as it was investigating the matter, the Department of Justice had reached a settlement with the woman over her complaint and that the investigation would be closed.
“I want to thank the whistleblower for her incredible courage in speaking up about sexual misconduct by her former boss,” Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger said in the statement. “No attorney, indeed no one, should have to deal with sexual misconduct in the workplace.”
The woman had been a law clerk for Kindred when the misconduct began. She went on to work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office as an assistant U.S. attorney.
She reported Kindred’s “unwanted, offensive, and abusive sexual conduct,” and an investigation revealed Kindred had maintained sexualized relationships with her and another prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to a report from the 9th Circuit’s Judicial Council.
The possibility that Kindred had been biased in favor of the two prosecutors with whom he’d carried on secret relationships, who had cases before him, prompted the U.S. Attorney’s Office to conduct a review of at least 40 cases.
Among other legal challenges to cases Kindred oversaw, at least one defendant has won a new trial because of the potential conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, the woman who reported Kindred filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, alleging that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had retaliated against her by not giving her a permanent position.
Bloomberg Law reported that the U.S. Attorney for Alaska, S. Lane Tucker, had sought a federal judgeship for herself around the same time.
Tucker said in a statement Thursday that the settlement between the woman and the Department of Justice “expressly denies any wrongdoing by District of Alaska management officials and avoids prolonged litigation.”
“I remain proud of the proactive way that our office responded to allegations of wrongdoing here, including by offering alternative work arrangements to the complainant,” Tucker said in the statement. “The complainant in this matter was not the individual who first disclosed Judge Kindred’s bad acts to management, and the permanent attorney position that she applied for went unfilled due to budget cuts.”
Tucker said the process of investigating complaints against Judge Kindred had been “frustratingly long” and that the fallout from Kindred’s actions continues.
The whistleblower’s attorney, Kevin Owen, said in a statement that his client had acted bravely.
“Our clients’ treatment as an employee at the Department of Justice underscores why survivors of workplace harassment and assault do not come forward,” Owen said in the statement. “Yet she continued to fight, at great personal risk, and it is thanks to her courage that the federal judiciary is a fairer and safer workplace today.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the U.S. Attorney for Alaska.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him atcgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Caseyhere.
