Posted on: Wednesday, August 1, 2001

Alleged sexual harassment unintended, lawyer says

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

HILO, Hawai'i — A Hilo biology professor accused of sexually harassing one of his female students is innocent of the charge, his attorney told a six-man, two-woman jury in federal court here yesterday.

Associate Professor John Scott, a faculty member at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo, sat impassively while his attorney, Valta Cook, told the jury his client may have inadvertently touched the breast of student Tammy Silva of Kurtistown.

But Scott intended nothing by that action, or by a series of remarks which Silva, now 27, said Scott made in the fall of 1998, Cook said in an opening statement on the first day of what attorneys say will be a five-week trial.

The defense attorney promised jurors that none of the tape recordings Silva secretly made of Scott will show him guilty of harassing her.

Silva's attorney, Robert Crudele, told the jury that Scott sexually harassed Silva in a number of ways, and that the university — also a defendant in the case — didn't do enough to protect Silva and others from such treatment.

Silva, who dodged cameras outside the courtroom yesterday, contends in the suit that Scott offered to give her good grades in return for sexual favors.

And Crudele said the university ignored its own policy requiring investigation of sexual harassment cases within 45 days, waiting almost six months to act on Silva's allegations and violating federal regulations in the process.

The university's attorney, Kari Wilhelm, will make her opening statement to the jury this morning before Senior U.S. District Judge Sam King, outlining the university's contention that it acted properly and that there was no sexual harassment in any event.

Defense attorney Cook said none of the incidents cited by Silva amounted to or were intended as sexual harassment. For example, if Scott told Silva in a laboratory to be careful not to put her fingers into any of her "orifices," it was not the sexual slur she suspected but a mere quotation of lab rules about handling chemicals, Cook said.

It was true that Scott had a hobby of giving shoulder massages, but didn't force a massage on Silva as she claimed, Cook told the jury.

His statement that she could use his towel was not an invitation that she shower at the lab, but just to assist her in cleaning up the area, Cook said.