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Sex at Work Made Her Sick, Woman Says

FAIRFIELD, Calif. (CN) - A fired worker claims her boss at a home for troubled boys demanded sex from her on pain of firing.

Suzette Hilliard sued Mary's Help, of Vallejo, and her direct supervisor, Roy Smally, on Nov. 24 in Solano County Court.

Smally was executive director for the group home for boys from 13 to 18, Hilliard says. She describes him as a former pre-season player for the Denver Broncos and a former Richmond police officer.

Smally and his program received an admiring write-up in a January 2013 issue of the (Vallejo) Times-Herald News.

Hilliard says she was hired in 1999, but the trouble began in 2003, when she was promoted to facility manager at one of the group homes. She says Smally offered her a $2 an hour raise to "fund the payment of her traffic tickets," in exchange for sex.

"You need your driver's license in order to get full pay, it won't take much sex to pay those tickets," he said, according to the lawsuit.

Hilliard claims Smally ordered her to meet him for sex at one of the organization's group homes, and she submitted to it for a year and a half.

Finally, Hilliard says, physically ill from the ordeal, she "built up the courage and confidence to tell Roy 'No!' and ceased all sex acts, [for which] she was retaliated against and ultimately fired."

But that wasn't the end, Hilliard says. She learned after he fired her that Smally had gotten married. When he contacted her in November 2007 with a job offer, she says, she accepted, thinking she would be free from the sexual harassment.

But no. One month after she was rehired, Smally did it again, she says, demanding sex so frequently and insistently that she felt physically sick from it. She says they started having sex again in December 2007, and that her job "was contingent on the silence and continuing of the ongoing sexual arrangement."

During this time, Smally's wife Vi, the assistant director, refused to pay her for working overtime, Hilliard says. Vi Smally is not a party to the lawsuit.

Hilliard says the tension in the office became unbearable when Vi found out about her husband's philandering. She says she filed a complaint with the Community Care Services board on July 5, 2014, and Roy Smally fired her nine days later.

She seeks punitive damages for quid pro quo sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful firing. She is represented by Lawrence Bohm in Sacramento, who did not reply to a request for comment. Nor did the defendants.

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