{"id":8583,"date":"2011-12-12T07:38:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T07:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=8583"},"modified":"2011-12-12T07:38:47","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T07:38:47","slug":"trial-of-eeocs-sexual-harassment-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-band-singer-begins-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/trial-of-eeocs-sexual-harassment-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-band-singer-begins-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial of EEOC&#8217;s sexual harassment lawsuit on behalf of band singer begins today"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Ferdie de la Torre<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>The jury trial of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a band singer who claimed that a then restaurant manager of a hotel made sexual advances on her, will commence today, Monday, in the U.S. District Court for the NMI.<\/p>\n<p>The jury selection in EEOC&#8217;s lawsuit against Asia Pacific Hotels Inc., operator of the Saipan Grand Hotel, is expected to begin at 9am.<\/p>\n<p>The former restaurant manager will not testify in court, but his deposition was filed in court.<\/p>\n<p>In the deposition, the former manager, who is now based in the Philippines, confessed he had engaged in a consensual relationship with the band singer.<\/p>\n<p>The former manager disclosed, among other things, that the singer, who was drunk at the time, invited him to her room.<\/p>\n<p>He was arrested, but was never charged. The singer eventually became the girlfriend of a police officer, who was among those who reportedly investigated the case.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys Steven Pixley and Vincent J. Seman are representing Asia Pacific Hotels Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Trial attorneys Nancy Griffiths and Derek Li are counsels for EEOC.<\/p>\n<p>EEOC alleged that defendants Asia Pacific Hotels Inc., Tan Holdings, and other co-defendants allowed the singer to be subjected to sexual harassment that was severe enough to create a hostile, abusive work environment.<\/p>\n<p>EEOC alleged that the hotel&#8217;s restaurant manager subjected the singer to unwelcome touching of a sexual nature.<\/p>\n<p>Pixley had earlier described the lawsuit as frivolous as he pointed out that Asia Pacific has long standing policies prohibiting sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p>Pixley said following the management&#8217;s investigation, the manager was immediately terminated consistent with the standing policies.<\/p>\n<p>Pixley vowed to \u201cvigorously defend this frivolous litigation in a court of law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ferdie de la Torre Reporter The jury trial of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}