Report: Yakima police chief crossed boundaries, didn’t sexually harass

YAKIMA, Wash. — A female police officer's complaint that Yakima police Chief Sam Granato sexually harassed her is not substantiated by the evidence, an investigator hired by the city has concluded.

Further, Nancy Graber said in a report, there's no indication the chief retaliated against rookie Officer Stacey Andrews when their friendship soured and she began to avoid him.

Nevertheless, Graber said Granato's "personal relationship" with Andrews "seems to cloud the boundaries of authority in the department ...

" ... It appears the chief does not understand his role and the power that comes with it when approaching a new employee with anything which appears to suggest a sexual relationship."

Graber, an Ellensburg attorney and professor of human resources management and law at Central Washington University, completed her report April 13.

The Yakima Herald-Republic obtained a copy Thursday.

City Manager Dick Zais, who had not intended to release the report, quickly issued a news release late Thursday after being interviewed by the Herald-Republic.

He said he has directed Granato to go through additional management training, be more cautious regarding interpersonal relationships with co-workers, and limit future communication with the officer who made the complaint to official police department business only.

Zais, who briefed the City Council on the report in an executive session Tuesday, told the Herald-Republic that Granato does not need additional training regarding sexual harassment. Earlier this year, Zais said he "counseled" Granato for kissing a female colleague from another department on the lips.

"He's been through sexual harassment training already," Zais said, adding, "He was not found guilty of sexual harassment."

In the city's news release, Granato said he didn't "necessarily agree" with all of Graber's conclusions but vowed to learn from the experience.

"I would never intentionally create perceptions that might cloud the boundaries of authority in the police department," he said, repeating language in Graber's report. "It's unfortunate that happened in this case."

Andrews' attorney, Bill Pickett, accused the city of going easy on Granato, noting Graber found the chief had engaged in "unwelcome" contact with Andrews because of her sex.

Pickett is scheduled to meet with Zais today, along with Andrews, a representative with the police union and her husband, fellow police Officer Mark Andrews.

"That finding appears to be overlooked by the city," Pickett said, adding, "That is not something that they can bury their head in the sand over, and if they do, they do it at their own peril."

In addition, Pickett repeated earlier threats to sue the city regardless of the outcome of the sexual harassment complaint. An attorney hired by the city to represent Granato once threatened to countersue Andrews for slander, and Pickett said the threat was an illegal retaliation under the circumstances.

"I fully anticipate the issue of retaliation as a result of the city's conduct during this investigation will be met with litigation," he said.

Graber interviewed a dozen witnesses and reviewed e-mail between Andrews and the chief as part of her investigation.

The report chronicles Andrews' interactions with Granato from the time she was a Yakima County juvenile probation officer stationed in the Yakima Police Department.

Andrews, then known as Stacey Cadden, first met the chief shortly after he was hired in 2003. Her desk was near his office.

It was during this time frame that the two became "personal friends outside the workplace," Graber said, adding that Andrews visited the Granato family at the chief's house, mentored one of the chief's daughters and watched after the house when the chief and his wife, Esmer, were out of town.

The relationship began to unravel in the spring of 2004, when Andrews decided that she wanted to become a Yakima city police officer, Graber wrote.

Despite receiving support from Granato, Andrews began to distance herself from him when other officers warned her that rookies should refrain from fraternizing with senior commanders such as the chief, Graber reported.

That advice apparently stemmed from rumors of an affair between Andrews and Granato. According to Graber, the chief told Andrews not to worry about it.

"He did not see any reason for a change in their relationship," Graber wrote, adding that Andrews nevertheless "believed that she should begin to pull back."

Then came an incident that Graber concluded was at the heart of the sexual harassment complaint:

According to the report, sometime between November 2004 and May 2005, Granato and Andrews met at the chief's request at the El Mirador restaurant for what she believed would be dinner with other people attending.

However, with no one else present, Granato told Andrews that he and his wife had argued over his relationship with Andrews. His wife, he said, was concerned about the amount of time he was spending with her.

The chief told Andrews he told his wife "that he wished the rumors ... were true and then his wife could be angry." Graber said both Granato and Andrews agreed on aspects of the story, although Granato disagreed with Andrews' claim that he also said, "If I had the opportunity to do that, I would."

Graber reported that Andrews interpreted the remark as a come-on and that she left the restaurant soon after, without either of them having eaten dinner. Granato later said he noticed a change in her demeanor but didn't think she was "upset" by the comment.

A similar incident occurred in August 2005 when Andrews, who at the time was attending the police academy as an employee of the Yakima Police Department, sent an e-mail to the chief about rumors within the police department that she and Granato were having an affair.

According to the report, Granato responded, "Well I heard the rumor from you back then. Too bad it was not true, but makes for an interesting place to work."

For reasons that are unclear, the report then skips forward to 2006. By then it was clear to Granato that Andrews was avoiding him, and he was not afraid to ask why.

At her father's funeral that May, he approached her and asked why she wasn't "coming around," Graber wrote. Andrews' response was not noted.

A few months later, it was undisputed that the chief queried an officer during a one-on-one meeting why he didn't hear from Andrews anymore. Andrews, meanwhile, had told her supervisor she wouldn't meet with the chief alone.

Graber said Andrews snubbed Granato twice between May 2006 and May 2007, once after encountering the chief and his wife at the Central Washington State Fair and another time when she arrived at the Fred Meyer store as backup, along with other officers, to an off-duty call initiated by Granato.

Granato continued to press Andrews, once encountering her at a conference in Leavenworth in which he allegedly asked her, "Why are you mad at me?"

At some point later, Andrews married fellow Officer Mark Andrews, and she transferred to Davis High School as a school resource officer. She alleged that Granato stalked her after the transfer, saying the chief was seen on several occasions in late 2008 or early 2009 parked near the school.

Graber said there was no evidence of this.

Andrews also alleged that her husband was the victim of retaliation because Granato would not reassign him to the City County Narcotics Unit. Graber said there was no evidence to support that contention.

In her report, Graber said that Andrews should have brought her complaint forward "in a timelier manner" but considered the delay understandable because she was a new employee at the time.

Still, Graber said she found it "troublesome" in terms of Andrews' credibility that in the course of a lengthy e-mail, Andrews wrote to the chief about the affair rumor, the officer failed to mention "an overall concern" with Granato's behavior.

Referring to the El Mirador incident and the e-mails, Graber said she found no evidence that Granato ever retaliated against Andrews.

"While I believe the conduct was unwelcome and also because of sex ... this investigator cannot say the conduct alleged rises to the level of a hostile work environment," Graber wrote.

Nevertheless, Graber said other incidents involving Granato "outline a breach of professional conduct." They include hosting parties at his home where officers were encouraged to sleep over if they had too much to drink and a recent incident in which he kissed a surprised female city employee from another department on the lips.

"Although this investigator could not corroborate the allegations of sexual harassment and/or retaliation, the above pattern of behavior is troublesome for a person in Chief Granato's position," Graber wrote, noting elsewhere in the report, "The Chief's boundaries, whether cultural or lacking in perception, are skewed and inappropriate."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.

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