VENTNOR – The city will pay $50,000 to its lone female police officer as part of a settlement of a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against the city, Atlantic City Police Officer Joseph Rodriguez, who heads the county training academy, the Ventnor police chief and captain, and other parties.
The payment by the city’s insurer to former K-9 Officer Jamie Pirchio of Northfield releases the city and its employees from all claims charged in the lawsuit she filed in December 2014. The agreement called for her to retire from the 31-member police force.
Pirchio asserts that she was continually sexually harassed starting in September 2013 during the course of a 33-week police K-9 training program at the Atlantic County Police Training Center in Egg Harbor Township. The suit alleges that immediately after she started the training program, Rodriguez began sexually harassing her with name calling, threats of violence and actions that were “outrageous and beyond all bounds of human decency.” – READ MORE
