Calhoun County Sheriff Scott Anderson, arrested over the weekend on charges for domestic abuse assault and assaulting police officers, now faces imminent litigation for allegations of sexual harassment from employees he supervised over the last three years since he took office.

An Iowa Civil Rights Commission complaint from former dispatcher and civil clerk Tamara Swank, filed in December, alleges that Calhoun County failed to act strongly enough to stop pervasive sexual harassment, workplace hostility and retaliation from Anderson after multiple reports from multiple women.

Though The Messenger typically does not name victims of sexual misconduct, Roxanne Conlin, the attorney representing Swank, said Swank permitted her name to be used in reporting the allegations.

The commission’s preliminary finding gave the OK to move forward with further investigation, finding reasonable merit for the allegations.

Anderson started initiating inappropriate conversations in 2017, Swank said, by bringing up wanting to divorce his wife and how he and his wife had not been having sex.

“Sheriff Anderson would tell me I could throw him a bone, insinuating I could have sex with him to alleviate some of his distress,” Swank said in her complaint.

She said he would continually bring up the conversations while she was alone or with him on matron duty transporting female inmates.

Over the next few years, Swank said the harassment escalated to a daily constant during the day as civil office worker and at night as a dispatcher. Other dispatchers indicated similar harassment, the complaint said, including constant yelling, screaming and belittling.

Swank would often be required to carry out matron duty, even when there were no women to transport. She reported that Anderson would often prolong the trips they took by driving slower than the posted speed limit and making unnecessary stops in rural, unpopulated spots.

But in September 2018, after Swank and four other dispatchers reported the behavior to Human Resources Director Kristi Johnson, she “decided that (the complainants) needed to work out these concerns with Sheriff Anderson directly.”

Another dispatcher was subsequently fired after declining advances from Anderson, the report states. An employee since 2012, Swank was “constructively discharged” from her position on Feb. 10 after “the working environment was such that she could not continue there,” according to Conlin.

After learning about complaints against him, Anderson launched “witch hunts” the report said, attempting to turn the women in the office against each other to determine who made the complaint.

In February 2019, a running joke in the office became sexually inappropriate when Anderson insisted Swank come into his office.

When receiving bad news, Anderson would look pensively at his watch and make a running joke about smacking the person reporting it with the hand he wore his watch on.

While Swank was delivering bad news, she said, “If you’re gonna smack me, take off …”

“It’s about time! Come on,” Anderson interjected, waving her into his office with his hands on his belt buckle. “I’ll shut the door! Come on. Let’s go!”

After denying the request, despite his continued persistence, he told her, “You’re evil, you know that?”

At one point, he asked her to move to Kentucky with him.

“The public has a right to know the full scope of his misconduct,” said Conlin, saying that Calhoun County is liable for what Anderson did.

She anticipates potential for a legal settlement with the county soon after the April 2 preliminary finding from the commission. A second complaint has been filed since the discharge, she said.

Conlin alleges that Anderson likely harassed all the women who worked with him in the Sheriff’s Office, including two other clients represented by her.

“What usually happens is that women put up with an awful lot,” she said. “There comes a time where you just can’t anymore, when the burden of living in this work environment becomes too much to bear.”

Swank took leave under the Family Medical Leave Act due to the stress and trauma of the job starting last year, during which time she alleges that the county’s human resources department had to tell Anderson to quit asking why she was gone.

In October, she said that Anderson showed up to her boyfriend’s work, asking what was wrong with her.

Removing a sheriff is “not an easy process,” said Calhoun County Attorney Tina-Meth Farrington, after new criminal charges against the sheriff arose.

An investigation from outside legal counsel, hired in 2019 by approval of the Calhoun County Supervisors for the second complaint Swank filed with human resources, determined that “even if the allegations were 100% accurate, it did not rise to the level of misconduct necessary for removal from office under Iowa Code Section 66.1A.”

That section details one qualification for removal as “willful misconduct or maladministration in office.”

The private investigators hired made that decision, the county attorney said.

Asked what level of conduct would rise to the level necessary for removal of an elected official, the county attorney said, “I don’t know, that’s a big question,” citing an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in State of Iowa v. Abraham Watkins that made the decision more difficult.

“They really muddied the waters for us,” she said.

Now, faced with criminal charges for domestic assault and assaulting police officers on top of sexual harassment allegations, the county may be forced to make a different decision sooner rather than later. Calhoun County Supervisors plan to discuss Anderson in a closed session Tuesday morning.

Meth-Farrington said the charges would be referred to either another county’s county attorney or the Attorney General’s office for prosecution, to avoid a conflict of interest.

“He has been asked not to come to work or do anything,” in the meantime, she said, though his powers as sheriff have not been suspended. “It’s just better off for him and certainly better for us.”

The request does not amount to any formal suspension or administrative type of leave.

Anderson has not announced a suspension to his re-election campaign against one opponent this year. He was first appointed to fill 30-year veteran Bill Davis’ shoes in 2017 and elected in 2018.

The county has continued to receive complaints of Anderson berating and yelling at employees, but has not received new complaints of sexual harassment, according to the response co-authored by Johnson and Meth-Farrington.