Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R)
Attorney General Jeff Landry defended his office’s handling of sexual harassment misogyny complaints against former top aide Pat Magee.
Magee, who had previously been suspended for inappropriate conduct, resigned last week after receiving another complaint. Landry wrote a letter to his staff saying that behavior won’t be tolerated.
“I said this thing has become such a distraction to the office that certainly it makes it difficult for me to do my job and it is difficult for the Criminal Division to move forward. So he resigned and certainly I accepted that,” said Landry.
Magee was suspended for about a month related to allegations that he made disparaging comments about women working for him and that he assigned cases based on gender. A third-party investigation concluded his comments were “joking in nature”. He returned to the office earlier this year and his resignation was the result of a second, similar complaint that had been filed against him.
Landry said his office takes every complaint seriously and he has an open-door policy when it comes to employees. He also vowed to continue taking action to ensure they have a welcoming work environment.
Landry also defended his lawsuit against an Advocate reporter who filed a public information request to get access to the full complaint against Magee.
“What we did not want was to create an environment in which people did not want to come forward because if they came forward all of a sudden their names would appear in the paper,” said Landry.
The lawsuit was dismissed and ultimately a redacted version of the complaint filed against Magee was released.
Comments