casino surveillance video of gamblers focus of lawsuit

Casino surveillance video focus of lawsuit By LEWIS KAMB, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER June 27, 2003 Surveillance agents responsible for ferreting out cheats at the Tulalip Casino for months videotaped unwitting female gamblers for their own sexual entertainment, a former employee contends. And the employee claims that when she complained about the so-called "blooper tape" -- a compilation of surveillance footage that includes video clips of a female patron stripping off her clothes and another urinating outside the tribe's casino near Marysville -- casino managers schemed to force her out of a job. Now, Viooltje Arpryazhka, 58 years old and unemployed, is seeking compensation through a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit filed last month in Tulalip Tribal Court. Naming tribal council members, gaming agents and casino managers as defendants -- 28 in all -- her lawsuit claims she was sexually harassed, wrongfully fired and ultimately retaliated against for complaining about the videotape. "I'm being destroyed by my own people," Arpryazhka said during a recent interview. "They're shooting the messenger -- and the messenger happens to be tribal." A lawyer for the Tulalip Tribal Gaming Agency who has seen the tape called Arpryazhka "a disgruntled employee trying to get her boss in trouble." Various employees compiled the footage for "instructive purposes," attorney Samuel Stiltner added, a valid reason to make and keep the tape. Reservation attorney Michael Taylor has filed a response to Arpryazhka's lawsuit, seeking to dismiss it on several procedural grounds. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was provided with documents that detailed other alleged problems within the casino surveillance department and casino management. The documents have been verified as authentic through checks with Snohomish County law enforcement and interviews with the tribe's attorney and police chief. Among the incidents: On June 22, 1998, an employee of the tribe's casino surveillance department was arrested on a fourth-degree assault charge at his home after his girlfriend confronted him over photographs he took of women at the casino. According to a report by a Snohomish County Sheriff's deputy, the man grabbed his girlfriend's hands and later pushed her after she found 30 photos in his pants pockets while doing laundry. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, according to the Snohomish County Prosecutor's Office. On April 9, 2002, a supervisor in the casino's surveillance department was accused of threatening a female employee with a paring knife. According to a memo signed by Tulalip Police Chief Jay Goss, the supervisor admitted to Tulalip Tribal Police that he pointed the knife and threatened the employee "in reaction to her improper statements about his sexuality." The man pleaded not guilty to an assault charge brought by the tribe's prosecutor and is awaiting a court hearing, Goss said in a recent interview. In a June 3 memo to tribe leaders, a female casino employee details five incidents she claims amount to harassment by the casino's chief operating officer, Chuck James. The woman says James inappropriately delved into her personal affairs over several months by making disparaging comments about her boyfriend, accusing her of having affairs and tracking down through a florist the name of a man who anonymously sent the woman flowers at work. An assistant casino manager under James, who is also a defendant in Arpryazhka's lawsuit, referred questions about the harassment claims to Taylor, the tribe's attorney. Taylor said he could not comment on those claims because he and a Tulalip police officer have been assigned to investigate them. In general, Taylor said he does not believe the allegations described in any of the incidents constitute a pattern of behavior, but rather are not unusual "for any large agency." "The tribe has a lot of employees," he said. "There's a constant stream of complaints and disciplinary actions that happen. In any organization, you have constant ferment in these kinds of areas. It's not like this is anything new." But Arpryazhka paints a different picture. In her lawsuit, she claims she first saw the video of "a female casino guest stripping off her clothes" in November 2001. Casino surveillance personnel taped the guest outside the casino in a parking lot. Arpryazhka contends she was offended by the tape, and, fearing that it posed sexual harassment and privacy liabilities, immediately reported it to a supervisor. Her complaint made its way up the casino's chain of command, she says. But while James and other top managers became aware of the video -- allegedly referred to by employees as "the blooper tape" -- they did nothing about it, the suit contends. Two months later, Arpryazhka claims she raised the matter again to supervisors. But she says the tape continued to be copied, circulated and openly viewed among male surveillance employees. She claims that when she continued to complain, casino managers and tribal gaming officials began harassing her by monitoring her e-mail. She says she was later duped into opening an envelope marked "confidential" in the casino's surveillance department -- a scheme she says was meant to entrap her into a firing offense. Arpryazhka, who had worked for the casino for nine years and says she had never before received a reprimand or poor job evaluation, had her tribal gaming license suspended on April 14, 2002. It was officially revoked in December 2002, and Arpryazhka lost her job. Stiltner, the attorney for the Tribal Gaming Agency -- the tribe's regulatory watchdog for its casino -- said Arpryazhka's license was revoked only after she and another employee were "caught on tape going through items on the surveillance director's desk" and copying personnel records. During the hearing about Arpryazhka's license revocation before the Tribal Gaming Court last year, Stiltner added, the surveillance department's director disputed her claims about the videotape, testifying that it was compiled by a variety of employees for instructive and risk management purposes. Those purposes could have included determining how long cameras were fixed on certain areas of the casino, to find out how long it took security personnel to respond to specific incidents and for orientating new surveillance employees to the job, he said. "Anybody in the surveillance department could dub things on the tape if they thought it was useful to do so," Stiltner said. After Arpryazhka first complained about the tape, Stiltner added, the surveillance director "thought maybe this wasn't a good thing to save after all" and "was going to destroy it." But the tape disappeared from a locked cabinet and copies later emerged, Stiltner said. Officials suspect Arpryazhka took the tape, he said. Since her firing, Arpryazhka has been unemployed, and she says her personal credit standing has been damaged. Her lawsuit contends she was sexually and mentally harassed. It claims her firing was unconstitutional and runs afoul of federal Indian civil rights and gambling laws, as well as tribal policies. She is seeking more than $3 million in punitive and compensatory damages. Taylor, the reservation attorney, has filed a motion to dismiss the suit on several grounds. He argues that under tribal law, Arpryazhka must first seek to resolve employment grievances through an administrative process, which she has not done. He also said that because Arpryazhka's allegations already have been addressed during the Tribal Gaming Court hearing, the matter has been resolved. And that court "did not rule in her favor," he said. A hearing on Arpryazhka's lawsuit is set for July 23 in tribal court. June 27, 2003 By LEWIS KAMB