Former US Marshal loses sex discrimination case

June 24, 2008 05:31 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

(John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

A Globe photographer caught a picture of Dichio shopping during work hours in 2004.

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

A federal jury in Boston today awarded $150,000 to an assistant US marshal after concluding that Anthony Dichio, the former marshal for Massachusetts, retaliated against her at work because she filed a sex discrimination complaint against him.

The verdict in US District Court in Boston was the latest embarrassment for Dichio, who was fired by the Bush administration in 2005 from his $130,000-a-year job after the the Globe documented his lax work habits and use of his government-owned vehicle for personal errands.

After about four hours of deliberations, the jury concluded that Dichio retaliated against Cynthia Bohn after she complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity office of the Marshals Service in January 2003 about being denied choice assignments and positions with investigative duties.

Bohn, 40, smiled broadly after the verdict but said she could not comment because she is still employed by the Marshals Service. Her lawyer, Indira Talwani, of Boston, said the verdict was vindication for her client.

"Marshal Dichio retaliated against her," Talwani said. "He could not accept the notion that someone was challenging a decision he made."

Barbara Cottrell, an assistant US attorney from the Northern District of New York who defended the Justice Department in the suit after US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan recused his office, praised the jurors as "conscientious" but declined to comment further.

Dichio testified during the trial but was not present when the jury delivered its verdict.

The jury rejected Bohn's claims that Dichio discriminated against her because of gender bias but said he retaliated against her, including by transferring her from Boston to the Worcester office in October 2003 with what her lawyer described as three hours' notice.

This was the second time Bohn's case went to trial. In 2007, after a non-jury trial, Judge William G.Young rejected claims of gender bias and retaliation. Earlier this year, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, threw out that verdict, saying Young misapplied the law and challenging his factual conclusions.