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Excerpts of Alegre’s deposition read in court
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Posted on Dec 15 2011
By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter
Reporter
Excerpts of the deposition of the former restaurant manager of Saipan Grand Hotel who is accused of making sexual advances on a band singer were read in federal court yesterday.
U.S. District Court for the NMI law clerk QuynhChi Nguyen read Tomas Alegre’s answers in the deposition, while the lawyers for the parties read the questions.
After the reading of Alegre’s depositions, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission trial attorneys Derek Li and Nancy Griffiths called to the stand more witnesses: Grand Hotel personnel manager Joseph Ada and general manager Ed Cho.
When Saipan Tribune left the courtroom in the afternoon, attorney Steven Pixley, counsel for Saipan Grand Hotel’s owners, Asia Pacific Hotels Inc., and Tan Holdings Corp., was still cross examining EEOC’s expert witness Julie Yanow.
In his deposition, Alegre said the singer invited him to come to her hotel room shortly after a small birthday party for her held near the hotel’s beach in the early morning of Jan. 2, 2008. Alegre said the singer invited him to sleep on her bed. He admitted hugging and kissing her. When asked if the singer pushed him and asked him to leave, Alegre replied “no.” Alegre also said that they hugged and kissed at the beach.
Alegre said that Joseph Ada later conducted an investigation and told him he was suspended and that they were going to terminate his contract.
Ada and Cho talked about their role in the investigation as well as the hotel’s policies regarding sexual harassment.
The EEOC’s expert Yanow testified that her general opinion was that there was deficiency on the company’s part regarding its sexual harassment policies. The expert explained the four steps in order to have efficient sexual harassment policies.
When asked if she interviewed any human resources personnel on Saipan before coming up with her opinion, the expert replied, “No.”
The trial will continue today, Thursday.
