Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office faces another lawsuit, this time by female lieutenant alleging gender bias

Another lawsuit has been filed by an employee alleging discrimination in the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office, the fifth such complaint in recent years.

Lt. Stacie Lick, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Gloucester County Superior Court, alleges that she has faced gender discrimination including retaliation, a hostile working environment, and disparate treatment by another lieutenant in the office, James Ballenger, and the office’s chief of detectives, Thomas Gilbert, both of whom at times were her supervisors.

In addition, Lick named as defendants the Prosecutor’s Office; the county; and a former detective in the office, William Perna, who she said has aided in the discrimination.

Her lawsuit follows one filed last month by Ballenger, who did not name Lick as a defendant, but contended that under then-Prosecutor Charles Fiore’s direction Lick used the office’s internal affairs process to retaliate against Ballenger.

Lick’s attorneys, Michelle Douglass and Philip Burnham II, said Thursday that her lawsuit was not filed in response to Ballenger’s lawsuit. Her complaints, they said, preceded his suit and had been disclosed in January in a formal complaint to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, the Gloucester County counsel, and Fiore.

“There’s a problem in the Prosecutor’s Office,” Douglass said. “The state has had to come and intervene and is operating the department.”

On March 5, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal appointed a deputy in his office, Christine A. Hoffman, to serve as acting Gloucester County prosecutor after Fiore abruptly resigned. His resignation came amid various discrimination complaints by employees against him and other higher-ups in the office, although no one has officially said whether his resignation stemmed from the complaints.

Hoffman did not respond Thursday to an email seeking comment about the employee complaints, what she is doing to try to improve relationships there, and what the Attorney General’s Office has been doing in regard to the lawsuits. The AG’s Office has declined to comment.

Gilbert, who is also the public information officer for the Prosecutor’s Office, declined to comment Thursday, citing the ongoing litigation. Ballenger also declined. Perna could not be reached.

Lick’s lawsuit is the second by a female employee that alleges gender discrimination. On March 9, Detective Breia Renner filed a suit against the office, Fiore, and another supervisor, contending she was discriminated against because she is a gay woman.

Lick, who began working in the Prosecutor’s Office in 2003 in the Major Crimes Unit, contends in her suit that when Ballenger supervised her from 2011 to 2016, he treated her differently because of her gender. “Ballenger would celebrate the male detectives in the Major Crimes Unit, even when they completed minor tasks, but would very rarely acknowledge Plaintiff’s accomplishments or inquire about her assignments,” the suit says.

After being transferred to the Special Investigations Unit in March 2016, Lick has been assigned to investigate employees in the office and has rendered findings adverse to some officers, most notably Ballenger, her suit says. As a result, her suit contends, Ballenger has initiated a smear campaign against her, including writing anonymous complaints about her.

Gilbert has also mistreated Lick because of his close relationship to Ballenger, the suit contends. As an example, the suit says, Gilbert regularly required Lick to submit her reports to him for review and correction, but did not require the same of her male counterparts.

As for Perna, the former detective, Lick’s lawsuit contends that he “is frequently calling others to gossip and spreads damaging falsehoods about [Lick], thereby contributing to the hostile working environment.”

As a result of the discrimination, the suit says, Lick has suffered stress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, worry, high blood pressure, and loss of everyday enjoyment of life.

The AG’s Office has been investigating the various complaints and whether a hostile work environment exists in the Gloucester County office, according to former employees and court filings in an ongoing lawsuit filed by another detective, Eric Shaw. Shaw and Detective Bradd Thompson have both alleged in lawsuits that a captain in the office discriminated against them because of their service in the military reserve or National Guard.