A former victims advocate who was fired after sending an email reply to San Francisco’s district attorney asking, “What color panties you have on,” is suing the county, alleging he was defamed and has been unable to find work since he hit send on the infamous email.
Jovan Thomas, 56, was fired Jan. 26, shortly after sending the email that was then circulated on social media. Screenshots of the email appeared to show Thomas making the inappropriate inquiry in an office-wide email in reply to a message from San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins.
Images of the email prompted Jenkins’ office to issue a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle clarifying that Jenkins had no relationship with Thomas, and calling the message “misogynistic behavior” that violated the office’s code of conduct.
But according to the complaint, Thomas did not intend to send the inappropriate email to his boss. Instead, Thomas says the message was intended for a fraternity friend, “who was distraught and grieving the death of his father.”
Thomas “intended to text his friend a jokey question of the sort that that plaintiff had sent his friend on occasion in the past in order to cheer him up,” the complaint states. “In the context of their long-time friendship, plaintiff’s flip question had no sexual, off-color, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning.”
But according to the complaint, just before Thomas planned to send the text message to his friend, he received a calendar invitation from Jenkins.
Instead of sending the message to his friend, Thomas pressed “reply all” and sent the message not just to Jenkins, but to the entire staff at the district attorney’s office.
The complaint names Jenkins, the city and county of San Francisco, the district attorney’s office, and a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office as defendants.
In the complaint, Thomas’ attorney claims the message could not have been interpreted by staff at the office any other way other than a mistake.
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“Absolutely no one who received plaintiff’s Email could reasonably have believed that plaintiff had actually inquired of his boss, the District Attorney of San Francisco, what color panties she was wearing, either seriously or as a joke, much less in an email sent to the entire staff at defendant SFDA,” the complaint states.
The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the suit. A spokesperson for the San Francisco city attorney’s office said it would respond in court.
Immediately after sending the message, Thomas sent another office-wide email apologizing and trying to explain the mistake, according to the suit.
“While texting back and forth with my fraternity brother I sent a very inappropriate email,” the message read, according to a screenshot that was circulated on X. “I am sincerely sorry and would never do such a thing on purpose.”
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Later that same day, Richard Ng, director of human resources for the District Attorney’s office, notified Thomas that he was being laid off.
In the complaint, Thomas alleges it was the D.A.’s office that contacted members of the press, shared the email, and also tipped off reporters that Thomas had a previous complaint of sexual harassment filed against him.
In 2018, Thomas was sued by a woman identified only as Jane Doe, who had been the victim of a robbery and met Thomas through the Bayview Victim Services office.
The woman accused Thomas of inviting her to his home, where they had sex. Thomas was later dropped as a defendant, and a judge found the county not liable.
In the complaint, Thomas’ attorney, R. Michael Lieberman called the sexual harassment suit “meritless,” but accused the D.A.’s office of pointing reporters to the complaint.
The suit was first reported by the San Francisco Standard.
Contacted by phone, Lieberman declined to comment on the case.
The complaint also claims that the D.A.’s office did not explain in its public statements that the email had been a “wacky email” mistakenly sent, but instead described it as “misogynistic behavior.”
The statements made by the D.A.’s office, the complaint alleges, made Thomas “the object of obloquy and ridicule.”
As a result, Thomas has been unable to find employment since he was laid off, the lawsuit alleges.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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