The first time WPRO’s John DePetro propositioned a co-worker who filed a sexual harassment suit against him was in a bus on the way to a rally to defend Christmas at the State House, according to an amended complaint filed today in Superior Court.
According to the complaint, the bus – like the Barrington vacation house that DePetro is said to have made unwanted sexual advances towards co-worker Dee DeQuattro – is owned by former state rep. David Caprio. Caprio could not be immediately reached for comment and did not return calls last week either.
According to the court filing:
In December of 2011, Mr. DePetro used a bus that he said was owned by his friend David Caprio, who was present on the bus, to transport listeners to a “Holiday Tree” religious protest at the Rhode Island State House. Mr. DePetro informed Plaintiff that he and his friend had “a lot of fun” on the bus, and that she and some of her girlfriends should join them on the bus some time. Plaintiff did not report the matter as she thought that her rebuff was sufficient.
DePetro had organized a rally at the State House to compel Gov. Chafee to stop using the term Holiday tree. He made national news on FOX for his assertion that calling it a holiday tree was an affront to those who believed in Christmas.
The amended complaint also contains new information about the alleged incident that took place at the house at 32 Lorraine St. in Barrington.
While discussing the house, DePetro casually stated that he and some friends have sexual parties at the house, as he had alluded to on prior occasions, and proceeded to put his hand on Plaintiff’s shoulder and pull her toward him. Plaintiff yelled at him to stop and pushed him back, whereupon DePetro attempted to pull her toward him again and was once more pushed back by Plaintiff, who became extremely upset and told him she just wanted to be brought back to work.
The complaint also says there was a witness at the house, identified as “John” with whom DePetro talked when he and DeQuattro were leaving the house.
The new complaint also adds a charge of defamation and slander because of statements he made to me that were published on this website.
According to the article, Mr. DePetro further falsely claimed that ‘There was never a mention of anything until she f—d up The Who story,’” according to the court filing. ”
“Plaintiff never went into a “tailspin” over her successful “Who” article, which was in fact approved by WPRO, and was certainly never in danger of being fired over it. Plaintiff furthermore had reported her problems with DePetro well before DePetro’s outlandish reaction to the “Who” article, as Defendants were aware.
According to company policy, Cumulus claims that it “strongly prohibits retaliation against any employee or applicant for reporting harassment.” Despite this policy, and despite DePetro’s acknowledgement and intentional disregard of this policy as stated in the RIFuture interview, and despite the fact that DePetro had engaged in obvious retaliatory slander of a co-worker which adversely affected her work environment, he was suspended for only two days.
The amended complaint also now names Lew Dickey, CEO of Cumulus, the parent company of WPRO, as a defendant.
I have no idea who is telling the truth here but clearly once the court has an idea, one of them needs to be fired.
Let’s Buy A Corruptometer
Let’s buy a Corruptometer
and keep it in the house.
That way, we’ll know
when it’s time to go,
who’s good,
and who’s a louse.
We’ll take a walk
to Benny’s
and hand the man
our pennies,
Spouse.
Then, right back home
to that garden gnome.
Right back home to our house,
home to our house,
home to our house.
DePetro has really put Cumulus in a bind by stating they did an investigation and already cleared him. Any HR Generalist can tell you a complaint like that is handled very delicately, companies shouldn’t be telling one party they are cleared and if they did and they don’t have the dated documentation to back up investigation, that will only bolster the plaintiff’s case. If this is the case, the company hadn’t completed a thorough investigation and they are now named defendants, this will probably end up costing them a great deal of money. Especially since they knew about the allegations and let them persist. And as I’ve stated, DePetro claiming that the company had already cleared him, puts them in even a greater mess.