Ex-jail guard sues Napa County, saying co-workers harassed him into depression

A former Napa County jailhouse guard says in a lawsuit that he was driven off his job and wound up in a mental hospital because of vicious antigay harassment from co-workers and supervisors.

Dante Michelucci, 41, a correctional officer with the county from 2007 until April, is a heterosexual man who lives with his wife in nearby Sonoma County, his lawyer said. But he said Michelucci’s colleagues, for the last year of his employment, apparently decided he was gay and started calling him derogatory names, hanging pictures on his locker and asking him how much oral sex he had engaged in that day.

When Michelucci reported the abuse to supervisors, “he was labeled a snitch, and his coffee cup (was) spit into,” the suit said. “The hostile work environment became so pervasive that (Michelucci) was hospitalized” with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.

“He had a breakdown,” said attorney David Poore. He said Michelucci’s doctors have removed him from work.

There was no immediate comment from Napa County officials.

The suit said Michelucci had done well at his job for a decade and received letters of commendation and a promotion to the position of field training officer. Poore said his workplace problems apparently started last year after Michelucci refused orders to give low marks to an African American officer he was supervising.

When he asked his supervisors why they wanted the officer removed from his position, the suit said, they replied that “he just doesn’t fit in.”

Michelucci started to get regular insults about his appearance and supposed sexual orientation, and his locker was “littered” with edited photos that appeared to show him in a gay pride parade, the suit said. It said one supervisor mocked his claim that he was being bullied, and others told him the harassment was a sign that his colleagues liked him.

He came to work one day in November to find that the batteries had been removed from his flashlight and his radio, and was then accused by a supervisor of being “out of uniform” because his equipment wasn’t working, the suit said.

After another incident in April in which a sergeant assailed him with antigay slurs, the suit said, Michelucci broke down and was placed on family medical leave. Napa County then decided to investigate his complaints, demanded his participation in the investigation, and, when he cited his medical disability, accused him of refusing to cooperate, the suit said.

The suit, filed in federal court last week in San Francisco, seeks unspecified damages, including punitive damages.

Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle