Former inmate counselor files sex discrimination suit against Nevada prison system

A former substance abuse counselor for the Nevada prison system filed a sex discrimination lawsuit Monday against the Department of Corrections.

Kathleen Minard filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. According to the document, she was hired in August 2006 and “felt she had no choice but to submit her resignation on March 16, 2011.”

“During the course of her employment, Minard was constantly and continuously subjected to a hostile work environment, enduring intimidation, harassment, and retaliation by her immediate managers,” the lawsuit alleges.

The department did not immediately respond Tuesday to an email request for comment on this story.

Minard is represented by lawyers Ruth Cohen and Paul Padda. Both attorneys previously worked as federal prosecutors in Las Vegas.

According to the lawsuit, Minard was hired to work at High Desert State Prison but also was assigned inmates at the Southern Desert Correctional Center and the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center.

The department hired a new substance abuse director, Lynda Hemann, around October 2009. The lawsuit claims Hemann instituted a new policy that required all counselors to be considered clocked in only when they reached their stations, which were 15 minutes’ walking distance from where they signed in to the prison.

When counselors objected to being on the premises for 30 minutes a day without pay, the lawsuit alleges, “Hemann suggested they follow her orders or file a grievance.”

In May 2010, Minard agreed to help a counselor file a grievance. A month later, according to the lawsuit, Minard was counseling about 98 inmates at three different prisons, while some counselors had as few as 12 inmates to counsel and were not traveling to multiple locations.

“This incredible workload was clear retaliation for having assisted” the other counselor, the lawsuit alleges.

In September 2010, Minard threatened to file a grievance. Shortly after that, according to the lawsuit, she was allowed to work exclusively at one location but was given about 70 inmates to counsel. Minard also was passed over for a promotion, according to the document.

She soon began complaining about an unsafe environment for staff and inmates “due to a racial imbalance of inmates” and about a hostile work environment for female counselors, according to the lawsuit.

“Minard feared the imbalance would result in a riot in the unit Minard was working,” the document alleges.

In December 2010, according to the lawsuit, Minard reiterated her fear of an impending riot in a staff meeting and in an email to a warden.

“Shortly thereafter a riot took place as Minard feared,” the lawsuit alleges.

In late December 2010, according to the document, an inmate stepped into Minard’s office, pulled his penis out of his shorts and began to masturbate while walking toward her.

The lawsuit claims Minard immediately phoned a corrections officer, who demanded she give him a detailed account of what happened before he would report to her area. By the time Minard finished a detailed account for the officer, the inmate had fled, according to the lawsuit.

Corrections officers later made Minard go from prison cell to prison cell while they questioned her in front of inmates, “thereby placing her in future danger,” the document alleges.

During the questioning, a fight broke out in a separate wing, “which resulted in an officer having a heart attack,” according to the lawsuit.

“The corrections officers blamed Minard for calling in the assault and taking them away from one of their own,” the lawsuit alleges.

In February 2011, according to the document, Minard learned she was under investigation “for refusing to comply with a direct order, which Minard was never given, and supplying three inmates who won a poetry contest with one candy bar each, a practice that was common amongst counselors in order to motivate inmates.”

The same month, according to the lawsuit, Minard sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at cgeer@reviewjournal.com or 702-384-8710. Find her on Twitter: @CarriGeer.