TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A woman has alleged in a lawsuit that a New Jersey state trooper’s repeated sexual harassment forced her to drop out of the state police training academy.
Attorneys for the then-28-year-old woman filed a federal lawsuit this week against the state police and Trooper Stephen Spitaleri, claiming sexual discrimination and a hostile work environment. The lawsuit accuses the state police of failing to adequately train and supervise its employees.
It wasn’t immediately known if Spitaleri had retained an attorney who could comment. Through a spokesman, the state police declined to comment on the suit Friday.
The woman, whose full name was not given, alleged that shortly after she enrolled in late January, Spitaleri began treating her differently from the other trainees and began making unwanted sexual advances.
The trainees spend all week at the academy in Sea Girt, near Atlantic City, and live in dormitories. The woman alleges in the suit that Spitaleri’s attentions often caused her to miss training or class time and that his conversations with her became more personal and sexual in nature.
He also referred to her as his “secretary,” which damaged her credibility with the other trainees, the suit claims. Some allegedly began referring to Spitaleri as “her husband.”
The woman left the academy in late April, after 13 weeks, and said in the lawsuit she suffers from depression and anxiety and that Spitaleri took away her career “along with the last five years she spent investing in qualifications for the job.”
The suit seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages and lost wages.
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