November 11, 2022
By Emily Mibach
Daily Post Staff Writer
A San Mateo County Sheriff’s deputy has filed a lawsuit against the department, saying her supervisor sexually assaulted her and regularly subjected her to harassment in a work place where higher ups had to be told to stop sending porn to each other.
Deputy Carryn Barker is a sixyear employee of the sheriff’s office, she is the only woman on the SWAT team and heads up the sex crimes unit. Her lawsuit, filed in San Mateo County Superior Court on Wednesday, says she has received high performance evaluations, praise and a Medal of Honor during her tenure at the sheriff’s office.
She was featured in a video created by the sheriff’s office, praising her and two other deputies for saving a woman whose RV was on fire.
When asked about the lawsuit, Sheriff’s Office Lt. Eamonn Allen responded with the following statement: “The Sheriff’s Office is aware of a lawsuit filed in San Mateo County by a current staff member. While the office does should be noted that several of these allegations are decades old and were investigated and adjudicated at the time. The Sheriff’s Office is and has been aware of more recent allegations involving our current staff and has taken affirmative steps to investigate these matters. These investigations are ongoing. As personnel matters, they are confidential, and the Sheriff’s Office cannot comment further other than to say these matters are being diligently handled through internal channels.”
Barker’s lawsuit describes the Sheriff’s Office as a “boys’ club.” The suit said that higher-ups in the office were sending so much porn to one another that the office’s tech department had to issue a memo telling officers to stop sending porn on the office’s servers.
Barker was constantly subjected to vulgar remarks from a commanding officer, Sgt. Andre Moniot, the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit says Moniot made comments such as assuming Barker would look good naked, and saying: “I bet I’ll be the first to f∗∗∗ you.” Barker says in her lawsuit that her coworkers made light of her situation, often asking her to repeat whatever Moniot had said to her that day. She asked Moniot and others to stop making the sexist and demeaning comments, but they continued. She filed a harassment complaint in 2019, but nothing came out of it, according to the lawsuit.
Sometime during the summer of 2021, Barker told Moniot she did not like a particularly rude comment. Moniot responded by grabbing Barker and wrestling her to the ground, pinning her down in front of their coworkers. During the grappling, Moniot grabbed Barker’s behind and groin area, the lawsuit states. None of Barker’s co-workers intervened. Moniot was not punished, according to the lawsuit.
Despite Barker’s attempts to get other higher-ups in the department to intervene on her behalf, nothing occurred until this August, when commanding officers at the Sheriff’s Office suspected that Moniot leaked the Batmobile controversy to the media.
San Mateo County drew wide attention when it was revealed that Atherton realtor Sam Anagnostou had approached Sheriff Carlos Bolanos, asking the Sheriff’s Office to get involved in a dispute he was having with the maker of a replica Batmobile in Indiana.
Bolanos handed the case over to the Vehicle Theft Task Force, which went to Indiana to raid the Batmobile maker’s business.
Those commanding officers began “searching for pretext to punish Moniot and set an example for other officers who did not conform.” Barker was told there was an internal investigation into Moniot’s behavior. Barker did not want to be interviewed, saying he was about facing further retaliation. However, she was told she would be formally reprimanded if she did not cooperate. Barker gave an interview and was then “forced” to do further interviews about Moniot’s alleged sexual assault and harassment of Barker.
Barker says she was so distressed by the internal investigation and the fear of retaliation that she suffered from a stress migraine that made her lose her vision.
Barker found out on Nov. 3 that Moniot would not be put on any sort of administrative leave for his harassment.
Later in 2021, Barker began working with three other supervisors – Sgt. Donnie Burnett, Lt. Jacob Trickett and Sgt. Jeffrey Carr – who allegedly “started a sexist campaign to attempt to force (Barker) the only woman in their unit, to resign or transfer,” the lawsuit states. Barker also says Carr was assigned to her unit after complaints of misogyny in his previous department.
This included requiring her to do large volumes of work that had to be done in an “unreasonably” short amount of time, the suit said. She also claims she was not given the same flexibility in scheduling her work hours as her colleagues, all of whom are men.
Barker, who is a single mother, states she needed some flexibility in her schedule in order to care for her 2-year-old son and her mother with Parkinson’s. The three supervisors also allegedly interfered with Barker’s attempt to go on part-time familial leave to care for her mother.
In September, Barker made a formal complaint about Carr, Burnett and Trickett and their alleged campaign against her. She shortly found out that the Human Resources employee assigned to her case is a personal friend of Trickett’s. Despite contacting HR, Barker continues to be harassed by her three supervisors.
Barker also claims that an assistant sheriff harassed a 911 operator, touching her without her consent, and forcing her to sit next to him for hours at a time for no professional reason.
Her suit also claims another deputy was nicknamed “Captain Stalker” because he stalked, harassed and intimidated a female lieutenant who rebuffed his sexual advances.
Her suit also said a sergeant was allowed to “retire gracefully” after being demoted following substantiated sexual harassment claims