A former security guard at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) sued former site security contractor Centerra Group this week for repeated incidents of alleged sexual harassment culminating with a violent sexual assault in 2017 by five male colleagues.
Jennifer Glover, who first told her story to The New York Times in January, sued Centerra Group in U.S. District Court for Nevada. The complaint echoes what Glover, a former security police officer (SPO) at NNSS, told the Times: that in November 2017, five male SPO colleagues belonging site’s Special Reaction Team allegedly ganged up on her during a training exercise in a smoke-filled room. While Glover was handcuffed “for her role in the training,” the men struck her in the face with the butt of a rifle and, as she lay bleeding, groped her buttocks, groin, and breasts, Glover alleged.
The men groped her so forcefully, according to Glover’s complaint, that they tore off her nipple ring. In the smoke-filled training room, she could not see who assaulted her, the complaint says. She did identify one attacker “with a sleeve tattoo on his arm.”
Glover seeks damages including back pay, lost benefits, and punitive damages. She also wants District Judge James Mahan to require Centerra to monitor work areas to deter or record further discrimination by employees, and to discipline supervisors who engage in unlawful discrimination, as Glover alleges her supervisors did to her.
Glover said she reported the alleged violent assault of November 2017 to Centerra, but that the company failed to discipline her alleged assaulters.
Glover alleges the violent assault was preceded by repeated incidents of sexual harassment that were “severe and pervasive throughout her employment,” which lasted from 2016 to 2018, when SOC took over the Nevada National Security Site security contract.
Among other things, Glover alleged that male colleagues: propositioned her for sex; traded pictures of her in a swimsuit that they acquired from her Facebook page; and spread rumors that she “would sleep with anybody.”
One fellow SPO, Cody Wells, allegedly exposed his genitals to Glover while the two were carpooling to work, and propositioned her for sex. One of Glover’s supervisors allegedly invited her to “Come over, have some wine. We can hang out. Whatever happens, happens.” Glover rejected both advances, according to the complaint.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) funds contracts at the Nevada National Security Site, including the deal once held by Centerra.
In January, after the Times broke Glover’s story, an agency spokesperson said “NNSA cannot comment directly on the complaint since it is a personnel matter between the employee and the contractors. However, actions such as those described in The New York Times article are unacceptable and clearly not in keeping with NNSA’s high standards of personal conduct.”
In an email, a media relations firm retained by Centerra Group denied the allegations and said the company “appropriately responded to and thoroughly investigated the claims Ms. Glover brought to its attention in January 2018.”
In her complaint, Glover said Centerra’s human resources department in Nevada conducted a three-week investigation of the alleged assault of November 2017. The investigation did not result in disciplinary action related to Glover’s alleged assault, according to the complaint. Glover said in the complaint that one of the investigators, a Mr. McCree, told her “This is what happens when you work in a man’s field.”
Centerra, a subsidiary of Constellis Holdings, is headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The company currently provides security for DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington State and at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
Centerra recently told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s affiliate publication, Weapons Complex Monitor, that the company is interested in competing for a follow-on security contract at Savannah River. The South Carolina site is mostly funded by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
Centerra had not filed a response to Glover’s complaint by deadline for NS&D Monitor.
Meanwhile, another Nevada site SPO who worked alongside Glover, and who stayed on the job when SOC took over the site’s security contract, on Monday sued SOC. The SPO, Gus Redding, alleged SOC retaliated against him for publicly and privately supporting Glover, including by cutting his hours, placing him on leave, and blocking his medical retirement.
The New York Times in January reported that Glover and Redding were dating.
