McCallum confirms DOJ’s $100K offer to drop her complaint

Assistant U.S. attorney Beverly McCallum confirmed with the Saipan Tribune yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice had offered her $100,000 to drop her discrimination complaint against the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam.

A source had disclosed that DOJ last week offered McCallum $100,000 to drop her complaint filed with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and leave the department. The source added that the DOJ also offered McCallum a one-year detail someplace else, with the right to return to Saipan afterwards.

When asked about the alleged offer, McCallum confirmed that both of those scenarios have been offered to her.

“Yes, I can confirm that that is true,” she said. “I rejected the $100,000.”

She declined to comment further on the alleged one year-detail offer.

Saipan Tribune sought comments yesterday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Districts of Guam and NMI but there was no response as of press time. U.S. Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the CNMI Alicia Limtiaco earlier refused to comment on the EEOC complaint.

McCallum said her EEOC suit was set for a hearing in May 2012. She did not explain further.

Saipan Tribune learned from sources that McCallum filed the mandatory “pre-complaint” in March 2010 in Arizona and the formal complaint was filed in July 2011 in Washington, D.C.

McCallum named as respondents Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the DOJ, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam.

The complainant seeks compensatory damages, back pay, front pay, lost awards and bonuses, attorney’s fees, retirement benefits, and transfer from the supervision of the discriminating officials, among other things.

According to sources, the issue was that whether from September 2007 to the present, management officials at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam subjected McCallum to a hostile work environment based on her sex and retaliated against her for complaining about harassment.

The complaint alleges that from September 2007 to the present McCallum was sexually harassed and threatened and that other DOJ employees and federal agents were encouraged to ostracize her.

McCallum also complained that from October 2007 to March 2010, an assistant U.S. attorney failed to take any measures to stop the discrimination and retaliation.

McCallum also complained that she was denied an opportunity between 2008 and June 2009 to compete for the Branch Chief position in the Saipan branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In April 2010, McCallum was allegedly placed on a “Bad Boy and Bad Girl List” and a “winners list” that were circulated among district employees.