Can you stand one more story this week about a Democrat politician accused of sexual harassment?
Come on down, lackluster state auditor Suzanne Bump!
Unlike the governor of New York, the school committeeman from Chelsea, or the state senator from Arizona, the wrinkly hack hasn’t been accused of committing any criminal offenses — maybe that’s why she’s not seeking re-election next year.
Sex crimes, after all, are customarily a resume-enhancer in Democrat party circles.
But Bump does own a company in Quincy, which she inherited from her late husband, that is now being sued for sexual harassment, among other things. As the company’s secretary, treasurer and director, Auditor Bump is a defendant in the civil case in federal court.
The name of the company is Modern Assistance Programs, Inc. (MAP).
The plaintiff, Michelle Murphy, used to work at MAP before she was fired in July 2020. She is now accusing Bump and her MAP minions of “creating a hostile work environment through sexual harassment and threats.”
There’s other stuff in there, too, about COVID-19 and pay disparities, but let’s stick to the Cuomo-type stuff.
Please, I implore you, try not to let what you’re about to read destroy your faith in the sincerity of the Democrat party’s total commitment to ending sexual harassment in the workplace.
Damien Turini, according to the suit, is the manager of the MAP staff and was also Murphy’s direct supervisor.
This is from Paragraph 54 in the federal complaint:
“By his repeated unwanted touchings and gesturing to his genitals and stating ‘you like foot-longs’ to Mrs. Murphy, Mr. Turini’s conduct towards plaintiff was clearly of an overt sexual nature.”
The state auditor’s office was offered the opportunity to respond to the charges in the lawsuit. Over the past two days, Bump did not.
The lawsuit was initially filed in state court, and it contained even more details about the foot-longs and other instances of what Murphy described as Turini’s “lascivious conduct in the workplace.”
According to Paragraph 30 in the state suit, during working hours “Mr. Turini engaged in multiple instances of inappropriate touching, and sexual innuendos to Mrs. Murphy over the course of several months, including asking Mrs. Murphy if she ‘liked foot-longs’ when a group of employees, including Mr. Turini, were ordering submarine sandwiches.
“Mrs. Murphy said in response to this unwanted comment from Mr. Turini, ‘You are (an) HR nightmare.’ To which, Mr. Turini replied, ‘That’s why I like working at MAP. We don’t have HR.’ ”
In the next paragraph, the plaintiff says “Mr. Turini touched Mrs. Murphy in unwanted and sexually suggestive ways.”
As for her own personal life, “Mrs. Murphy is a happily married woman and in no way was Mr. Turini’s conduct welcome.”
According to both complaints, she was fired last summer after complaining about the lack of COVID-19 protocols at the Democrat politician’s company.
She asked to be allowed to work from home — you know, like almost everybody in the state hackerama that Bump is supposed to be keeping tabs on.
But apparently, the same relaxed, shall we say, work rules in the hackerama since the Panic began were not replicated in a private-sector business that actually provided income to a Democrat.
According to the lawsuit, the president and CEO of MAP is John E. Christian. When Ms. Murphy requested to be permitted to work from home, it was Christian who ordered her back to Quincy “without giving cause or providing health and safety protocols in the office, as ordered by the state of Massachusetts.”
Can Auditor Bump audit her own private company?
“Mr. Christian then called Plaintiff, shouting over the phone and threatening her with termination if she did not come back to work, despite having no COVID safety protocols in place. At the conclusion of the call, Mr. Christian denied Mrs. Murphy the options of working from home or taking a personal day and stated that if she didn’t come in, she was fired.
“He finished by saying that Mrs. Murphy could be ‘laid off or fired, up to you,’ and that she was ‘not going to tell him how to run his business.’
“Mrs. Murphy’s employment was subsequently terminated at that point.”
These are merely allegations, to be hashed out in court, but is this really the look that a woke female Democrat wants to project, even if she’s not running for re-election (a decision she announced, by the way, after the state suit was filed)?
Check out Bump’s state website sometime. Certain themes reoccur in her audits: “no significant instances of noncompliance … processed properly … is effectively administering these important services …”
In other words, seldom is heard a discouraging word in the auditor’s audits.
For any interested groups, say your local chapter of the #MeToo movement, there is this note on her website:
“Interested in learning more about the work of Auditor Suzanne M. Bump? Invite her to attend the next meeting of your group or event.”
Just don’t ask her any questions about happily married women or foot-longs.
