A former corrections officer at the Maine State Prison and Bolduc Correctional Facility has won her suit against the state’s Department of Corrections resulting in a payout of $395,000.
The former employee, Autumn Dinsmore, names the state’s department of corrections as being responsible for the sexual harassment and discrimination she suffered during her time at the correctional facility. Dinsmore, who was employed by the Department of Corrections, began work in February 2017 before filing her lawsuit with the Human Rights Commission in April 2019.
In her lawsuit, Dinsmore details that she was subject to sexual overtures by her male co-workers. Among her claims were that male co-workers would send her nude photographs over SnapChat and pressured her to do the same. Dinsmore also recounts that male co-workers would routinely harass female co-workers by telling them that they were unfit for their job duties because of the assumption that they would have inappropriate relationships with the male inmates.
Dinsmore, who identifies as a gay woman, details that the sexual harassment she endured was often targeted at her sexual orientation. Dinsmore details that one supervisor told her that she just hadn’t “found a real man” while another co-worker proposed that the pair engage in intercourse so that he could “flip” her sexual orientation.
In an interview with local outlet News Center Main, Shelby Leighton, one of the attorneys representing Dinsmore, shared, "Her sexual orientation was questioned numerous times. But at the same time, she was subject to harassment by her male coworkers, by male supervisors, who treated her as a sexual object and somebody that they wanted to have sex with."
The Main Human Rights Commission had previously come out in support of Dinsmore, detailing that her claims had enough evidence to support that she was the victim of sexual harassment and discrimination. In a report shared by the Commission, the advocacy group details that the Department of Corrections “knew or should have known about the harassment, and did nothing to stop it.” The report states that instead, the Department of Corrections “contributed to the hostile environment by disciplining (Dinsmore) more harshly than her male coworkers.”
The lawsuit, which was filed six months after the advocacy group saw grounds for negligence on the Department of Corrections' part, goes on to defend Dinsmore detailing, “This refusal of her male coworkers and supervisors to accept (the woman’s) sexual orientation is consistent with the workplace culture of treating women COs as sexual objects and the traditional ideology that true lesbians are unlikely to exist because women cannot resist sexual attraction to men.”
As part of the settlement, Dinsmore resigned from her role as a correctional officer. The Main Department of Corrections has also denied any wrongdoing in their role of Dinsmore’s experience while working for the Department.
