College Police Chief Accused of Harassment

MISSION VIEJO —  Two Saddleback Community College District employees charged in a lawsuit filed Friday that they were sexually harassed by their campus chief of police and that he looked through binoculars at female students and at couples having sex in the parking lot.

The women say they have already filed grievances against Director of Safety and Security Dennis Rotzoll and assistant director of Campus Safety James Pyle with the state Fair Employment and Housing Department, and that the district has ignored their complaints.

“It’s been very strenuous,” Nettie Ruth Dickey, 42, said. Dickey says she gained 100 pounds since the harassment began when she was hired in January, 1986.

“It’s unbearable, it’s intolerable; he’s out of control,” said fellow plaintiff Maria E. Thorpe, 36.

The district declined to comment on the case, stating that it has yet to receive a copy of the lawsuit.

“If and when we do, we will be turning it over to our attorney, because it’s a matter of litigation,” said Diane Riopka, spokeswoman for the district. “Our practice is not to comment on anything that is in litigation.”

Rotzoll, who oversees a staff of 25 at the district’s Irvine Valley and Saddleback colleges, did not return phone calls.

Thorpe, a campus officer, and Dickey, Rotzoll’s former secretary, said they remained on the job because they needed to work to help support their families. They are now on medical leaves unrelated to the lawsuit filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court.

The suit says that Rotzoll sexually harassed both women physically and verbally since shortly after they joined his staff, and that Pyle knew about and condoned the behavior. The women claim they reported instances of sexual harassment and discrimination to Pyle, who failed to investigate the complaints.

According to Thorpe’s allegations in the lawsuit, Rotzoll, who is responsible for the safety of 34,000 students at the two campuses, “spies on students engaged in sexual encounters and reported, in plaintiff’s presence, the graphic details of the sexual activity which he observed. Defendant Rotzoll has stated that he is not interested in stopping such sexual conduct among students because he enjoys watching it.”