We’re loving SouthFloridaGayNews.com’s news graphic for its Mike Verdugo story — about how the one-time Florida cop, HGTV interior designer, and bondage fetish film performer is, as expected, suing the City of Hollywood, in Florida, over wrongful termination.
Even though an arbiter upheld his axing as completely kosher, Verdugo maintains he was fired not for leaving out his performance in Rope Rituals, but because he’s gay. And the arbiter was biased!
According to court documents filed by his local gay attorneys, George Castrataro and Norm Kent, Verdugo argued his firing was unjustified and illegal, based solely on the fact he was a gay man whose prior conduct was lawful, private, personal and not employment subject to police department review. In court papers filed yesterday, his attorneys asserted that Verdugo’s conduct was constitutionally protected intimate human behavior; personal and ‘individually expressive acts’ outside the scope of review for the Hollywood police department. The legal argument made by his lawyers was that his failure to disclose the porn video to Hollywood when he was hired was inconsequential, and “that if he had failed to disclose he spent one day appearing in a Shakespearean play no one would have cared less. It was a bias against homosexuality that drove Hollywood up a wall.” Kent additionally pointed out that Hollywood officials were retaliating against Verdugo for successfully filing sexual harassment claims against the department.
[…] Verdugo’s original attorney, Alberto Milian, commented that “the Hollywood police department appears to operate on a parallel universe that’s oblivious to social evolution.” Verdugo’s suit is seeking to vacate the original arbitration award, as well as to allow him to seek damages against the city and officials who brought the action against him. They have said they will vigorously defend the case.
fredo777
Having watched his season of Design*Star, I always thought Mikey might be a real sweetheart in person. I’ve never met him, of course, but wish him the best in this legal pursuit + any future endeavors.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Not a nice nor accurate headline. Per Queerty’s THREE earlier posts about Mike Verdugo’s story, he made his claims in ORDER TO GET HIS JOB BACK!
Verdugo has been fighting anti-gay harassment and his later firing for over 2 years. The arbitrator in his case is a Christian fundamentalist in his late 80s.
The arbitrator rules against Verdugo, so his reinstatement as a Hollywood (FL) policeman is pretty much off the table. That he is now seeking financial restitution is not only appropriate, it is necessary in order to protect future anti-gay discrimination against other LGBT police officers.
I have a gay cousin who is on the NYPD. When he joined the force, he was pretty much in the closet as there was much anti-gay attitude and indifference from supervisors. Well New York lost a handful of lawsuits over the discrimination and settle many more. The City quickly saw that it would be a lot more cost effective, oh, and perhaps the right thing to do, to educate the entire 50,000 member force about equality and civil rights for LGBT. Today, my cousin is a proud member the the NYPD’s gay officers group.
It took a lawsuit to get marriage-equality, it took lawsuits to get gay civil rights in the NYPD, and lawsuits in all sorts of cases across the country for LGBT to achieve even the partial victories we have. So, now there is a lawsuit in Hollywood (FL) to end anti-gay discrimination there. I hope he wins, and wins big time.
B
It’s also worth noting that, according to http://www.southfloridagaynews.com/news/local-news/379-gay-cop-fights-back.html , the film was shot in an afternoon 5 years before Verdugo became a police officer. It would be easy to forget to include a one-afternoon gig when applying for a job.
Also, in 1996, I can see how Verdugo would not have realized that videos of him might be distributed over the Internet – the bandwidth at that time was much more limited for most of the public and you wouldn’t expect someone with his background to have a clue about how the technology was likely to develop.