Ex-PCC leader threatens lawsuit, seeks an apology

The former leader of Pima Community College is threatening to sue the school over its recent public apology to eight women who accused him of sexual harassment just before he retired in 2012.

Ex-Chancellor Roy Flores has hired a law firm to represent him. He’s demanding the college retract its apology to the women and instead apologize to him.

Lee Lambert, the college’s current leader, said he doesn’t intend to rescind the apology, which he made in writing and on video as part of PCC’s most recent legal settlement with one of Flores’ accusers.

An Aug. 20 letter to the college from the law firm Hufford, Horstman, Mongini, Parnell & Tucker accused Lambert of making “reckless, incorrect statements” in his apology in an “effort to placate dissatisfied employees and former employees.”

“Dr. Flores requests that Chancellor Lambert and the Governing Board of the college issue a public apology to Dr. Flores,” said the letter from the firm, which lists addresses in Flagstaff and on North Campbell Avenue in Tucson.

“No evidence exists that Dr. Flores caused harm to any of the complainants,” it said.

Flores denied the harassment allegations when they surfaced and soon afterward announced he was retiring for health reasons because of a recent surgery.

Months later, an investigation by PCC’s accreditor cast doubt on the official reason for his departure.

“While his health was a factor, the timetable for the chancellor’s retirement was greatly altered due to the allegations pending against him,” the accreditor’s report said.

“One board member indicated that (Flores) was ‘forced out’ due to the allegations,” it added.

Flores’ accusers have claimed various types of impropriety. One, for example, said he called her while he was in his bathtub. She said she could hear water and that he said he had dropped the soap. Another said he tried to force her onto a hotel room bed during an out-of-town conference.

PCC’s Governing Board has never released the results of an internal investigation of the harassment claims. The accreditor’s report said the female complainants “suffered physically, financially and emotionally.”

After spurning Flores, “they feared and experienced retaliation,” with some women transferred or demoted a few months after run-ins with him, it said.

The accreditor also found numerous other problems occurred on Flores’ watch, including corrupt contracting and hiring practices and a “culture of fear and retribution” that demoralized the school’s workforce.

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Governing Board members were faulted for failing to monitor Flores. The school now is trying to shed a two-year probation sanction imposed last year because of the accreditor’s findings.

PCC was not the first school at which Flores faced a sexual harassment claim.

In 1995, eight years before PCC hired him, Flores’ secretary at Elgin Community College in Illinois filed a complaint with that state’s Human Rights Commission. She said Flores exposed himself to her, which he denied.

Her complaint lingered in the state system for about a year before she withdrew it without explanation.

PCC’s recent settlement with one of Flores’ accusers, the amount of which has not been disclosed, was the second for the college. Another woman who complained received a $30,000 settlement a few months after he left.

Lambert’s recent apology was made at the insistence of the most recent settlement recipient.

“A critical chapter of the college’s past occurred when eight women employed by the college had the courage to come forward and report sexual harassment and retaliation by the former chancellor,” Lambert’s statement said.

“These women were willing to face (Flores) directly with an independent investigator. Rather than do so, he resigned more than a year before the end date of his contract.”

The letter from Flores’ lawyer said Lambert’s statements have damaged Flores’ reputation.

In an interview Wednesday, Lambert said, “I stand by my public statement.”

“I can’t say too much because I don’t know what (Flores) is going to do next and we might end up in a litigation situation,” he said.

Flores’ attorney also sent a letter to the Arizona Daily Star demanding that the newspaper state when reporting on Flores that “no instances of sexual harassment on the part of Dr. Flores ever were established.”

Flores has not responded to numerous requests from the Star since 2012 for an interview about the harassment claims. His law firm did not immediately respond Wednesday to another request for an interview.