California emergency services official sued for sexual harassment, retaliation

By SOPHIE AUSTIN
Associated Press/Report for America

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A lawsuit filed Tuesday accused a deputy director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of sexual harassment and retaliation against a senior employee while the agency did nothing to stop it.

Ryan Buras, an appointee of Gov. Gavin Newsom, harassed Kendra Bowyer for a year beginning in 2020 despite the agency’s knowledge of similar previous allegations made by other women employees, the lawsuit contends. Newsom named Buras in 2019 as deputy director of recovery operations, a role that includes wildfire and other disaster response. Bowyer was a senior emergency services coordinator.

“This administration swept a predator’s campaign of sexual and psychological abuse under the rug,” Bowyer said in a statement released by her lawyers. “A workplace that centers around supporting disaster survivors became a terrifying and nightmarish disaster zone in and of itself because they enabled his disgusting behavior.”

An email seeking comment from Buras wasn’t immediately returned.

Buras’s alleged harassment included crawling into bed with Bowyer while she was asleep during a gathering at his home, “touching her nonconsensually, attempting to get her alone in hotel rooms, grabbing her hand in public, calling and texting her nearly every night and more,” according to the release from her lawyer.

Bowyer “believed her career would be over the moment she told Buras to stop his advances, so she tried to come up with the politest way to stop his behavior,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Superior Court in Sacramento County.

But eventually, after rebuffing his advances, Bowyer faced retaliation from Buras that included restricting her access to resources needed to do her job, the suit contends.

His alleged behavior kept Bowyer from providing essential services to disaster survivors and caused her so much stress, anxiety and depression that in 2021 a doctor determined she was “totally disabled,” according to the lawsuit.

While Cal OES launched an investigation, Bowyer received a letter later that year stating that Buras didn’t act inappropriately, the lawsuit said.

“This man is untouchable,” Bowyer told The Associated Press in an interview.

In an emailed statement, Cal OES said it hired an outside law firm to investigate harassment allegations and “took appropriate action” after the investigation determined that “no policy was violated.”

The statement didn’t provide other details.

In an earlier statement, the agency said that “sexual harassment in the workplace is an affront to our values as an organization. It has no place in Cal OES and it will not be tolerated in any form.” ___ Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna