A former Yolo County Sheriff’s Office sergeant filed a federal lawsuit Friday against his onetime employer, saying he was terminated from the agency last month “for opposing sexual harassment and discrimination,” as well as exposing his supervisor’s efforts to cover up the conduct.
Dean Nyland claims he’s the target of employment retaliation and discrimination, the nine-page complaint against Yolo County and the Sheriff’s Office airing allegations that his supervisor, Capt. Hernan Oviedo, drove his work vehicle while intoxicated, and that another deputy, Charles Hoyt, threatened and sexually harassed female employees.
It also contends his senior managers, including Oviedo and Sheriff Tom Lopez, acted with “discrimination, retaliation, hostility and contempt” based on Nyland’s age, replacing him with a “younger, less qualified employee.”
Read the lawsuit here.
Reached by text Saturday, Lopez told The Davis Enterprise he has not been served with the lawsuit and “cannot speak about pending litigation.” Oviedo did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Nyland, who is represented by Sacramento attorney Jill Telfer, was terminated from the Sheriff’s Office on Sept. 3 after 14 years with the department, during which he reached the rank of sergeant in the fall of 2015.
The document says Nyland was in his fifth year as a detective, under Oviedo’s supervision, when in early 2015 he “developed serious concerns about Oviedo because Oviedo admitted to driving his county vehicle while intoxicated, he made inappropriate comments regarding female employees and told deputies about confidential conversations between Oviedo and former Sheriff (Ed) Prieto.”
But when Nyland objected to Oviedo’s conduct, “Oviedo responded by threatening to shoot Nyland in the head because he answered questions from Sheriff Prieto regarding a murder investigation,” the lawsuit says. “Oviedo told Plaintiff never to discuss the case with Sheriff Prieto because Oviedo believed Prieto was furnishing Public Defender Tracie Olson information about the case due to two being romantically involved.”
Nonsense, Olson said Saturday.
“This is an example of why male-dominated organizations can be toxic for women. Modern society understands that a male department head and a female department head can have a professional relationship as equals,” she said. “However, the male-dominated professions at times encourage people to draw conclusions that have no basis in fact. In order to best serve the people of Yolo County, department heads are required to be collaborative.”
Prieto agreed, also denying Oviedo’s alleged claim.
“I’ve had professional friendships with many people,” he said. “As sheriff I reached out to people at every level and have many friends in a wide variety of positions.”
Further conflict arose in 2017, according to Nyland, when he learned of a sexual relationship between Hoyt and a sheriff’s records clerk, and that Hoyt “had threatened the clerk to keep her mouth shut about the relationship” that included the pair having sex in a patrol vehicle. Management was aware of those details “but did not care and would not take any corrective action.”
So Nyland took it upon himself to report the sexual harassment allegations, as well as those of a young female deputy who told Nyland in 2018 she too had been harassed by Hoyt, by then a sergeant, and other members of his patrol team, according to the lawsuit.
Both complaints ultimately were dismissed following internal-affairs investigations, during which “a well-respected deputy approached Nyland’s office, pale white and visibly upset, and told Nyland that Hoyt had asked him to lie to the IA investigator about Hoyt’s treatment of female officers,” the document says.
For his efforts, Nyland claims, he was denied promotions to detective sergeant and boat patrol sergeant, then transferred to the graveyard shift “in retaliation for his protected acts.” His subsequent complaints to his superiors led to him being “shunned,” placed on administrative leave and ultimately fired after he refused to resign with three months’ pay.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene