‘Violated, degraded, dehumanized’: Ex-Seattle police official Jamie Tompkins demands $3M
Former Seattle PD official seeks $3M over romance rumors
Former high-ranking member of the Seattle Police Department and former FOX 13 News anchor Jamie Thompkins is seeking $3 million in emotional damages.
SEATTLE - Former Seattle Police Department Chief of Staff Jamie Tompkins wants the city of Seattle to pay her $3 million for pain and suffering caused by rumors she was in a sexual relationship with ex-Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz.
Tompkins made the claim in a demand letter her lawyer sent to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office back on Nov. 26 "to determine whether the City is interested in a negotiated resolution of this dispute." Tompkins’ letter surfaced in a recent public records request; Tompkins’ legal team says after the city received it, the mayor’s office agreed to enter mediation, scheduled for June 25.
The city has also entered into separate negotiations about a monetary settlement for Diaz, who confirmed that his lawyer has been meeting recently with the Mayor’s office relating to his $10 million tort claim against Harrell and "several other city employees." FOX 13 has made separate interview requests to Diaz and Tompkins to talk about their claims, which each said they are considering.
Diaz and Tompkins have already gone on the record denying they had a sexual relationship, despite a report from the Office of the Inspector General late last year that they had an affair and tried to cover it up.
The backstory:
In her demand letter, Tompkins blames SPD employees for starting the rumor she was sleeping with Diaz, after word got out in May 2023 that she was leaving her job as a news anchor at FOX 13 to come to work for Diaz. According to the demand letter, the SPD employees also spread the rumor to news outlets and social media.
Tompkins said in her demand letter the claims about her and Diaz exposed her to frequent harassment about her attractiveness. That included crude comments allegedly made by the Mayor in a conversation he had with Diaz, which Tompkins paraphrased in the document. "In June 2023, you [Harrell] met with Diaz about his alleged affair with Tompkins. You told him that you weren’t worried about the rumor and that it was ‘completely alright’ if he had slept with her. Diaz told you he had not slept with Tompkins and that it wouldn’t have been ‘alright’ if he had. You responded that you would ‘do’ Tompkins, and it’s fine. He replied that it wasn’t fine."
Harrell declined to comment about Tompkins’ letter Monday. He was asked about it at his news conference celebrating a significant increase in police hiring. "I will have to defer to the city attorney’s office but as you’ve heard before we take all allegations seriously, very seriously," he explained. After a few minutes, he cut short further questions from reporters, turning to address his guests at the event instead: "On this day we are moving forward! You guys with me?"
Tompkins’ letter says she tried to move past the rumors, but "it was much harder for [her] to do her job when a significant proportion of the SPD workforce believed she had received her position because of her physical appearance and sexual favoritism." The letter says she took her complaints to some of the top officials at SPD: "During her first week on the job, Tompkins informed [SPD] that she was being sexually harassed. She separately communicated the same to Human Resources."
Dig deeper:
Tompkins’ demand letter claims department officials initially debunked the rumors about her and Diaz. The letter claims Durand Dace, who had also joined the department from FOX 13, admitted to SPD’s Employee Relations and EEO officials that he had been spreading rumors about Tompkins, though "he had no factual basis for believing that there was a sexual relationship." Dace was ultimately fired for spreading the rumor.
Separately, the Office of Police Accountability concluded that Police Officer Valerie Carson "had spread the rumor that Tompkins and Diaz had engaged in a sexual relationship and that Carson had unlawfully surveilled Tompkins’s apartment," which prompted Tompkins to seek a protection order against her. Soon after, in May 2024, the letter states "SPD General Counsel Boatright came to Tompkins’s office and told Tompkins she had ‘a massive sexual harassment case’ for all she had endured at SPD."
However, that same month, Harrell demoted Diaz amid multiple claims of discrimination and sexual harassment filed by female officers in the department. The city also hired an outside investigator to look into the women’s claims, according to The Seattle Times. The Office of Inspector General started its own investigation of Diaz’s conduct that summer — by late October 2024, both Diaz and Tompkins were put on administrative leave.
Tompkins resigned from the department Nov. 6 – Harrell fired Diaz in December, citing OIG findings that Diaz had "an intimate or romantic relationship with a former SPD employee [Tompkins]" without reporting the conflict of interest when he hired her.
What's next:
Diaz has said he believes OIG relied on flawed and incomplete evidence in its investigation. Tompkins says no one from OIG interviewed her for the report.
While a mediated settlement may now hold out the hope of closure, her lawyer said that the allegations have taken a permanent toll on Tompkins, personally and professionally.
"Words cannot describe the anguish and humiliation Tompkins experienced," attorney Michael Submit writes in the demand letter. "Tompkins felt and still feels violated, degraded, and dehumanized. Tompkins is not the same person she was when she began employment with the City 18 months ago."
Former Seattle police chief fired after investigation
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell says former Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz was fired because of an alleged intimate relationship with his former chief of staff.
The Source: Information in this story came from Attorney Michael Subit and FOX 13 Seattle's original reporting.
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