A Clayton County police department staffer is accusing County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell of touching her inappropriately at an employee appreciation picnic on July 31.
Kristy Rohm is appealing the county’s finding that Bell did not violate the county’s sexual harassment policy when he “put his arm around my shoulders, leaned down and kissed me on the top of my head.”
Rohm also complained that Bell, sitting beside her, reached in front of her to shake hands with a co-worker sitting on the other side of her.
“During that time period of actual physical contact between the chairman’s body and mine was not terminated,” Rohm wrote in an appeal of the county’s decision.
“I found the chairman’s physical contact with me insulting and provoking,” wrote Rohm, who works in the county police department’s 911 center.
Bell declined to comment until the county had made an official statement. Clayton County Attorney Michael Smith could not be reachedWednesday afternoon to respond to questions about the status of Rohm’s appeal.
According to the written appeal, Rohm’s complaints were sent up the chain of command at the police department and it was decided that an “independent investigator” would be hired to look into her complaint.
Through her attorney, Rohm wrote, however, that there was no independent investigation. She said the county’s human resources director had assured her at an Aug. 28 meeting that Bell, a gregarious politician, “would never do that again.”
Rohm said she was appealing because she wanted the county to assure her that she and other employees would be “free of and protected from the unauthorized touching by another.”
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