Lawsuit filed against Department of Interior

A Helena employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, alleging their responsibility for creating a “hostile work environment” in which she was subjected to retaliation and additional harassment after being sexually assaulted by a coworker in Glacier National Park last year.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen found Bigfork resident Lawrence L. Lockard, 67, guilty of sexually assaulting a coworker during a scuba diving trip to Quartz Lake on Sept. 9, 2015. He was ordered to pay $22,000 in restitution to the victim and is currently serving a six-month prison sentence in a Seattle federal detention center.

In the civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula Tuesday, the victim of the assault alleges that Lockard’s actions caused her to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, embarrassment, severe emotional trauma and other physical and emotional injuries.

The complaint also takes aim at the federal wildlife agency, stating “the USFWS failed to discipline Lockard and failed to take reasonable steps to protect [her] from coworkers’ reprisals and additional harassment. The USFWS’s failures allowed USFWS personnel to create a hostile work environment by perpetuating false statements, suspicion and innuendo that Lockard’s actions were consensual.”

Last September, Lockard and the woman had hiked into Glacier for a scuba diving trip as part of a project to monitor and control non-native lake trout. The complaint states that Lockard was responsible for coordinating the trip and acting as the diving supervisor.

On the evening of the incident, Lockard and the woman slept in adjacent beds in a remote cabin while a third coworker spent the night in a tent due to his sleep apnea.

Knowing that the woman had been drinking and had taken sleeping pills, Lockard sexually molested the woman while she was asleep with earplugs in. The advances stopped when the victim awoke, according to the suit.

She “was unable to sleep the remainder of the night, lying there, in shock, terrified and feeling trapped until morning arrived, at which time Lockard and [the victim] hiked out of the remote lake,” the suit states.

After returning to work, the victim alleges that she reported the incident to law enforcement and to her supervisor, but the agency took no disciplinary action, allowed Lockard to retire without incident and failed to protect her from retaliation by coworkers who believed the incident was consensual.

The Associated Press reported in May that in an interview with a National Park Service special agent following the incident, Lockard stated that he knew what he did was wrong and knew the victim was asleep.

The suit also names Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell as a defendant. The victim is asking the federal court to award punitive damages as well as attorney fees and any additional relief the court deems just.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.