Lt. Gov. Kounalakis wins bid to avoid deposition in Fresno State retaliation lawsuit

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a motion for a protective order on Wednesday that prevents Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis from being deposed in a harassment and retaliation lawsuit brought by a Fresno State employee.

The plaintiff, Terrance Wilson, was locked out of the campus building where he worked days after he was quoted in a scathing February 2022 USA Today article. The expose detailed the mishandling of sexual harassment allegations at the university, and also Wilson’s complaints to university officials of bullying, harassment and retaliation by former vice president of student affairs Frank Lamas. Wilson and his attorneys allege that the lockout—university officials have confirmed in depositions that his access key card was disabled—was another act of retaliation.

They sought to depose Kounalakis over a phone conversion the lieutenant governor had with CSU Chancellor Joseph. I Castro days after the article was published.

“An interesting result,” attorney Stephen Hammers told The Fresno Bee. “The judge advised that the standard is higher for a public official and on these papers doesn’t think there’s a compelling reason to depose her, but acknowledged she had read every page of our papers and understood our position in opposing the motion and multiple times asked the parties about moving toward settlement.

“All of those things tell me that the court appreciates our position and that’s frankly as good as anything else. The fact of the matter is, Dr. Castro most definitely spoke with Lt. Gov. Kounalakis days before my client was thrown out of the university and if the lieutenant governor chooses not to testify then we’ll leave it to the trier of fact, namely the jury, to decide what happened with the lockout.”

The plaintiff’s attorneys will proceed with the case and depose Fresno State president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval and former Title IX deputy Erin Boele in January. They have already taken depositions in the case from Castro, Lamas, vice president of administration Deborah Adishian-Astone, associate vice president of human resources Marylou Mendoza-Miller and former dean of students Carolyn Coon.

A jury trial would start on Feb. 24.

Kounalakis said in a sworn declaration attached to the motion for the protective order filed by CSU attorneys that she had no specific recollection of speaking to Castro about the article in USA Today.

Castro, in an Aug. 21 deposition, described in detail a conversation he had with Kounalakis days after the USA Today article was published, according to court documents.

Castro testified that he had hoped to explain the situation, but Kounalakis wanted him to be terminated. The lieutenant governor, Castro testified, was upset that he had asked former San Jose State president Mary Papazian to resign in 2021 after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found the university failed to adequately respond to allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against its director of sports medicine.

“She was very angry with me about that. Told me I needed to pay for that,” Castro said in the deposition, portions of which are included as exhibits in the plaintiff’s motion in opposition to the protective order for Kounalakis.

Castro also testified that Kounalakis had wanted Papazian to be CSU chancellor. Asked if he thought Kounalakis was using her animus about the Papazian resignation, parlaying it into terminating his position, Castro said, “It felt that way.”

Wilson and his attorneys in deposing Kounalakis wanted to know what else had been discussed in the call Castro said in his deposition lasted “probably half an hour.”

“Quite frankly, the lack of her testimony could be as beneficial to our client as the actual testimony itself, and I’m surprised she doesn’t want to attend a deposition and explain what that phone call was about with Dr. Castro, given the USA Today article came out only a few days before that conversation,” Hammers said.

“Her election to stand on the sidelines based upon her position as lieutenant governor is, in my opinion, nearly the same as her attending a deposition. There’s an inference. I mentioned to the court, I would think that the lieutenant governor would want to attend deposition to clarify what was said in that conversation, because we intend to put her on the witness list for trial.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 5:30 AM.