Jurors have begun deliberating in a federal civil case in which a former police watchdog claims she became the victim of sexual discrimination in the Denver Independent Monitor’s Office.
“Sex, lies and cover-ups. That’s what Ms. (Valerie) Arnold would like you to believe this case is all about,” defense attorney Jessica Allen told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
But Allen said Arnold was fired as a result of poor work performance, insubordination and extremely poor judgment.
“None of those reasons had anything to do with the fact that she was a woman,” Allen said.
Arnold, fighting a bad case of laryngitis, She apologized to the nine jurors that she didn’t have enough money to hire an attorney to present her case as skillfully as it deserved.
“Taking on the city of Denver has never been a fair fight,” she said.
During the trial, the former Denver deputy monitor questioned former Independent Monitor Richard Rosenthal, who hired her in 2007 and fired her in 2011.
In closing arguments, Arnold said she never had a bad work evaluation until after she went over Rosenthal’s head and filed a sexual discrimination complaint with former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s office.
“(Rosenthal) trumped up a laundry list of trivial offenses against me and fired me,” Arnold said.
Arnold said a male employee in the office was allowed to have off-call time because he and Rosenthal are both men. Although her sister was receiving cancer treatments and her father was dying, she was not permitted to have regular off-call hours, she said.
“The only difference between us was gender,” Arnold said.
But Allen said Rosenthal allowed a male employee to get time off because he had applied for time off through the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. His son needed regular days off duty so he could meet his parental obligations.
Besides, she added, Arnold never applied for time off through the medical leave act and Rosenthal granted every request she made for time off-call.
For six weeks, Arnold ignored repeated direct orders to investigate the Denver jail death of inmate Marvin Booker, Allen said. Then she hired David Lane, a partner in the law firm representing Booker’s family.
“She was telling her boss to stick his instructions where the sun don’t shine,” Allen said. Arnold’s actions were “absolutely bad enough to warrant termination,” she said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kirkmitchell
