A former Michigan State Police trooper has filed a lawsuit against the department, its director and other officials, claiming multiple incidents of sexual harassment while she worked there.
According to court documents, the trooper joined the Michigan State Police in 2016. After graduating from trooper school, her field training assignment was to the Lakeview Post in Montcalm County. The lawsuit claims the post was almost two hours away from her home in Marshall, and that the distance “caused significant strain” on her marriage.
The lawsuit says that, in November 2016, she was assigned to a supervisor who “began sexually harassing (her) almost immediately,” and who “repeatedly propositioned her for dates and sex, knowing she lived almost two hours away from her husband.” The suit alleges she felt powerless against her supervisor, and ultimately agreed to enter a relationship with him, because he “was also vital in determining whether she was permitted to make it past probationary status as an employee.” The former trooper and her husband divorced in June 2018.
According to the suit, the former trooper says her supervisor became increasingly abusive during their relationship. That supervisor has since resigned from the Michigan State Police, and the two ended their relationship in 2023.
The former trooper also claims that she faced “rampant sexual harassment and discrimination from other MSP employees in the workplace,” and was “repeatedly forced to endure sexual comments and jokes, condoms being placed in her backpack, male troopers watching pornography in the workplace, and lewd comments about her female coworkers.”
In August 2021, she was terminated from her position following an incident in which she was captured on surveillance video striking two coworkers in the groin and swiping two coworkers with a “credit card type swipe,” during a Michigan State Police Troopers Association event at Grand Traverse Resort the prior October. She pleaded no contest in that incident, saying that she was intoxicated at the time and that it was an attempt at “horsing around, but had obviously taken it too far.” She served 21 days of a 30-day jail sentence in the spring of 2021.
Subsequently, an internal affairs investigation concluded that the former trooper’s termination was too severe a discipline, arguing that it was an “isolated incident” in her time with the department. The lawsuit argues she received back pay, but during the dispute her license with the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards lapsed. Unless that is renewed, she will not be able to return to work as a state trooper, the suit says.
The former trooper seeks a jury trial with unspecified damages, citing loss of income and employment opportunities, damage to her professional reputation and distress over the circumstances.
In response to the lawsuit, a Michigan State Police spokesperson issued the following statement:
“While we will not address pending litigation specifically, I can say that as an employer, the Michigan State Police is committed to fostering a work environment free from all forms of harassment or discrimination, and we do not tolerate, condone or allow harassment or discrimination by our members.”