Kentucky clerk who created hostile work environment removed from office by Supreme Court
A Kentucky circuit clerk who had a sexual relationship with a female employee and retaliated against her when it ended has been removed from his office, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Pulaski Circuit Clerk Joseph “JS” Flynn was appointed to the circuit clerk’s office in 2016 and elected to a full six-year term in 2018. In March 2022 a deputy clerk in the office filed a complaint against Flynn, alleging inappropriate behavior and a hostile work environment.
Flynn admitted to having a sexual relationship with the deputy clerk and acting poorly in one incident in which he cursed at a court employee, but denied other allegations against him, including sexually assaulting a female employee.
A three-day evidence hearing was held in May in front of a special commissioner. The special commissioner found that Flynn created a hostile work environment by assaulting the deputy clerk in a vehicle.
The clerk testified that while she and Flynn were riding back to the office one day from lunch in a Chevrolet SUV driven by another deputy clerk, Flynn tried to drag her from the front seat into the back seat with him.
Flynn pushed up her shirt to kiss her chest, exposed himself and tried to get her to touch him, the employee said. She said she told Flynn to stop but that he didn’t end the assault until the woman driving the vehicle yelled at him.
The Herald-Leader does not name victims of sexual assault.
Flynn strongly denied the incident took place.
However, the Supreme Court decided there was clear and convincing evidence it did happen, saying it found the testimony against Flynn on the issue “highly credible.”
The court noted that the employee who was driving supported the victim’s account, and that the woman told three other employees about the incident.
“Flynn’s blatant sexual assault of (the woman) alone is sufficient grounds for his removal, given its physical, threatening, offensive, intimidating, and severe nature,” the court said in the decision.
Other inappropriate conduct
The court cited other cases of wrongdoing by Flynn involving the same woman.
Those included shoving his hand up her dress in a court office, which was witnessed by two other people, and subjecting her to unwanted touching at work.
The court said Flynn retaliated against the woman after they had a brief, consensual sexual relationship and she ended it.
Flynn refused to supervise her after that, assigning a deputy clerk to do it instead, referred to her by derogatory names, including “ho,” and suggested she had a sexually transmitted disease, according to the ruling.
Flynn also created a hostile work environment in the office more generally, touching other female employees in unwanted ways, asking them to call him “Daddy,” and making crude sexual comments about women and his own sex life, the court said in its ruling.
Flynn’s inappropriate conduct included screaming and cursing at employees and making derogatory and sexual comments to female staffers, which subjected them to humiliation in front of co-workers and the public, the court said.
In July, the special commissioner recommended Flynn be removed from office, but the decision ultimately was in the hands of the Supreme Court.
Only one other circuit clerk has been removed in Kentucky, and that was 30 years ago, according to Aaron J. Silletto and Marc Manley with the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office.
Flynn was suspended with pay in late March 2022 after complaints arose about his conduct. Circuit clerks’ salaries differ based on county population; Flynn’s annual pay was $113,003.
Flynn previously worked as a deputy in the circuit clerk’s office under his grandfather, George Flynn, who held the office for nearly 30 years.
