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Former PHA employee sues Greene, alleging intimidation

She was Woman No. 3 - the last employee to settle a sexual harassment complaint against the deposed executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Carl R. Greene.

Carl Greene, who has denied any wrongdoing in previous harassment complaints, has been in seclusion at an undisclosed location. (File Photo / Staff)
Carl Greene, who has denied any wrongdoing in previous harassment complaints, has been in seclusion at an undisclosed location. (File Photo / Staff)Read more

She was Woman No. 3 - the last employee to settle a sexual harassment complaint against the deposed executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Carl R. Greene.

Since 2008, Moneke Thomas, 38, has been silent, sworn by PHA's lawyers not to discuss terms of her $350,000 settlement.

And while she continues to abide by that agreement, Thomas has taken the unusual step of suing PHA again - this time accusing Greene of intimidating her even after she left in 2008.

In a lawsuit filed in Common Pleas Court on Oct. 28, Thomas charges Greene and PHA with inflicting emotional distress as a way of keeping her quiet and deterring other women from taking similar action.

Thomas alleges that former and current PHA employees followed her. She also claims that over the course of the last year, someone tampered with her mail, dumped leaves and dirt in front of her garage, and overturned flower pots.

The complaint never names Greene as the perpetrator of those acts. But Thomas said she believes he was behind it.

"He will do everything in his power to prevent me from talking," Thomas said in an interview at the office of her attorney, Joanne Rathgeber of Hill Wallack in Yardley.

Nichole Tillman, a spokeswoman for PHA, declined comment. A lawyer for Greene in other matters, Clifford Haines, said the former executive director had not been officially notified of the complaint.

"Carl Greene has not been served, nor have I," Haines said. "We can't comment on a lawsuit that we know nothing about."

Rathgeber said of Greene, "He has not been served because we can't find him."

She said she attempted three times to notify Greene by hand-delivering a notice via courier at his home in the Naval Square development in southwest Center City. "There's no one there," she said. "Every address we have for him is no good."

Greene, who has denied any wrongdoing in previous harassment complaints, has been in seclusion at an undisclosed location and is seeking help for stress-related maladies.

His troubles began with the disclosure in August of financial problems. Greene's mortgage company foreclosed on his $615,000 luxury townhouse, while the IRS placed a $52,000 lien on his property. Both matters were later resolved.

But his career didn't start to unravel until the PHA board discovered that the agency had secretly paid $648,000 to settle three sexual harassment complaints against Greene in the last six years. Greene was fired by the PHA commissioners in September.

The complaint by Thomas is part of the legal fallout. Two additional women have filed new complaints about their treatment by the former executive director: one in federal court, and one with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

And yet another former employee, designer Elizabeth Helms, has a pending sexual harassment complaint with federal and state agencies. Helms refuses to settle if it means remaining silent, said her attorney, John M. Elliott.

Thomas is limited in what she can discuss about her time at PHA, Rathgeber said. Indeed, what is known about her 2008 harassment complaint has come from documents assembled by PHA's board to justify its termination of Greene.

The board reported in August that in her complaint, the former senior management specialist alleged that Greene made unwanted advances after a work-related dinner. Thomas claimed that he continued to ask her out and to interact inappropriately at work.

According to the board's report, Thomas said Greene retaliated by taking away work and suggesting that she work in undesirable locations at public housing projects. She also claimed that he threatened her by saying he would tell a worker whom she had laid off where she lived.

The board reported that the complaint was settled for $350,000, including back wages, damages, and attorney fees.

In an interview, Thomas said she feared Greene's wrath. "Before going to work, I'd sit in my car hyperventilating," she said. "I'd have to tell myself to take a deep breath. I was afraid and very distraught."

Thomas, who grew up in Bristol, graduated from Rutgers University before earning a master's degree in criminal justice from St. Joseph's University.

A single mother of an adult son, Thomas did two stints at PHA. She joined the agency in 2001 as a program manager in the Section 8 department, but left to go to Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich.

After graduation, she went to work for the New Jersey Attorney General's Office as an attorney's assistant and returned to PHA in 2006 in the admissions department, assigning families to public housing units.

"I had turned them down a couple of times before, but thought it was a good opportunity," Thomas said. "The agency had improved."

"Initially it was a good environment," Thomas said. "And then it turned into a hostile one."

She resigned on March 4, 2008, and filed complaints against Greene with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The matter was settled in June 2008 with PHA denying the accusations.

In August 2008, Thomas said she recognized a former PHA housing inspector following her in a black Nissan Maxima. She said she saw him on three other occasions over 16 months - once at the entrance of the gated community where she lived.

She said she also encountered PHA employees at unlikely places, including her church in Pennsauken. Thomas said that after leaving PHA, she was working without pay for a lawyer with a solo practice in Camden County. While she was there one day in April 2009, the attorney got a call from a PHA manager who said he wanted to drive out during his lunch break to talk to the attorney about an unspecified issue.

"My heart jumped," she said. "I became very fearful. I felt it had something to do with being continually harassed by Carl Greene."

Other women - including Helms and another former employee, Rachel Roberts - have made similar allegations of being followed by PHA employees after filing sexual harassment complaints against Greene. Helms believes she was followed by PHA police officers, Elliott said.

In her lawsuit, Thomas claims that PHA showed "intentional and/or deliberate indifference" by failing to adequately discipline Greene. She is seeking damages of $600,000.

Since leaving PHA, Thomas said, she had difficulty finding new work. She said she believes that PHA was not giving her good references.

"He tried his best to destroy my career," Thomas said. "He destroyed my inner self. I broke down. I became depressed, requiring treatment."

With Greene gone from PHA, Thomas said, "I'm so relieved right now. I don't feel danger anymore."

"I'm trying to get my life back," she added, "because two years were taken away from me."