By Allison Manning
The Columbus Dispatch
DELAWARE, Ohio — A fired female deputy who was linked to the former sheriff has filed a discrimination complaint against the county sheriff’s office.
Janine Senanayake claims she was sexually harassed and then unjustly fired from her road-deputy job last month by the acting sheriff, said her Cleveland-based attorney, Avery Friedman.
Acting Sheriff Scott Vance said in the termination letter that she failed to satisfactorily complete her probationary period. In a separate matter concluded the same day, he issued her a one-day suspension for failing to show up at two hearings in municipal court in February.
Vance declined to comment because the office has not yet received the complaint.
Friedman said Senanayake was sexually harassed by a fellow deputy, and that after she complained about it late last year, her evaluations diminished. Missing court dates is not historically a fireable offense in the office, he said.
The native Sri Lankan was discriminated against because of her race and gender, he said. Friedman said she also seems to be suffering the consequences of her link to former sheriff Walter L. Davis III, who abruptly resigned on April 9 amid an investigation into misuse of county funds.
According to the case file from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Senanayake was identified as a possible subject or witness to the potential crimes and “various additional moral/ethical issues.”
Since Davis resigned on April 9, Senanayake was in training or called off sick nearly every day until she was fired on April 24.
The latest firing is Senanayake’s third law-enforcement job lost in five years.
She was fired from a Stark County township police department in 2009 after she was caught on an in-cruiser camera kissing and fondling Perry Township Police Chief Timothy Escola as they drove a prisoner from Cincinnati back to the northeastern Ohio township. Her name then was Janine England — she was married to a Medina County deputy — and she had held her part-time police officer job for less than four months. Escola also lost his job.
Friedman said Senanayake’s gender-discrimination complaint against the township was validated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year. That allows the federal government to file a suit against the township, which Senanayake could join.
She also was fired in 2007 from the Montville Township Police Department in Medina County after less than a year because of numerous issues, including the arrest of the wrong person on a traffic stop.
She filed a $250,000 lawsuit against Montville Township and the police chief, but later withdrew it.
Both terminations were included in Senanayake’s background investigation before she was hired in Delaware County.
Friedman said in both Perry Township and Delaware County, Senanayake has been the scapegoat when men have misbehaved.
“When men act badly, if there’s a woman involved, for some reason, the women get the blame,” he said.
Copyright 2012 The Columbus Dispatch