A second woman is suing US transportation giant Crowley Maritime over an alleged long-running campaign of sexual harassment and violence waged by a former boss.
The El Salvador-based woman — identified under the pseudonym of Jane Doe — accused the manager of attacking her at his wife’s home during a work trip to the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2018.
Lawyers for the woman say the attack was part of a pattern of abuse by her boss, identified as Juan Emilio Blanco, who is accused of raping another woman during a similar trip from their office to the US two months earlier.
Blanco denies all the allegations brought against him. Crowley said the claim it faced of sex trafficking was “false and without merit”.
Lawyers for the two women say El Salvador national Blanco was behind a campaign of sexual intimidation and assaults that his US-based bosses covered up despite being warned of his behaviour. Blanco was eventually sacked in 2018 after eight years with the company, according to the claim.
The lawyers detailed a corrosive office atmosphere at the Crowley subsidiary in San Salvador, where Jane Doe worked in an administrative role helping with cargo shipments, according to court documents filed by her lawyers.
They said Blanco “terrorised” female workers and continued in his role despite numerous complaints of workplace sexual misconduct.
Blanco is accused of giving a job to one woman after he obtained a revenge “sex tape” from her former partner. He is said to have shared the footage with other members of the team and then humiliated the woman by using phrases she uttered in the video, according to the claim.
‘Hostile environment’
“Blanco’s conduct was severe and pervasive and fostered a hostile, abusive, and offensive work environment,” according to the court documents.
Jane Doe said she was sexually assaulted by Blanco during a training trip to Florida after the company secured a multibillion-dollar contract with the US Department of Defense.
She had voiced her concerns to company officials about travelling with Blanco for the trip but said those fears were dismissed.
Her lawyers say the company should have stopped Blanco travelling as they had already received at least three reports about his behaviour, including the alleged rape.
The woman said Blanco subsequently assaulted her on the terrace at his wife’s home in Jacksonville, Florida, where she had been invited for dinner with another employee on the trip.
The attack only ended, she said, when Blanco’s wife turned up on the terrace. She stayed awake all night at the house with chairs forced against the door handles to keep Blanco away, the papers claim.
The woman is represented by lawyer Ryan Melogy, who also acts for Hope Hicks, better known as Midshipman-X, whose account of being raped at sea highlighted sexual abuse within the shipping industry.
Vanessa Treminio — another former Crowley employee in El Salvador — filed a complaint against Crowley in February last year after accusing Blanco of assault and rape.
She claimed that Blanco tricked staff at the front desk of the hotel where they were staying in Florida into handing over her room card key and then raping her.
She said she told senior Crowley staff of the attack the following day but officials failed to report the allegations to law enforcement and he was able to travel back home to El Salvador.
A US judge earlier this year ruled that Treminio had a plausible argument that she was trafficked and forced to make the trip to Florida under pressure to keep her job. Her lawyers said the civil case is due to go to trial next year.
Blanco’s lawyer, Michael Williams, said: “My client denies all allegations and has no further comment at this time.”
Crowley has been accused in the Jane Doe civil case of sex trafficking as the company allowed the trip to go ahead with an employee known to be a “sexual predator”, according to her lawyers.
The company said it had zero tolerance for sexual misconduct and was committed to creating a “safe and respectful work environment”.
It added: “While we take allegations of sexual assault seriously including the disturbing ones in this case, we will vigorously defend ourselves against this lawsuit asserting that Crowley engaged in sex trafficking as false and without merit.”
