It was a dramatic day in court for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
“Good luck subpoenaing me,” said James Lee, the key witness thus far in a lawsuit brought against the transit agency by a former employee. Lee had been in the middle of testifying when the lawyers for both parties called for a recess. The lawyers conferred with San Francisco Superior Court Judge Daniel Flores, who announced to the courtroom that he was declaring a mistrial.
The trial, which started last Friday, had been postponed so much by an attorney’s illness that the jury’s schedule was scrambled. Rather than work around it, Judge Flores said they’d start over again.
At this news, Lee, who had been waiting out in the hall, re-entered the courtroom and challenged the attorneys to dare bring him back.
The lawsuit, brought by former senior parking officer Elias Georgopoulos, alleges that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency failed to intervene in the face of harassment, racism, and discrimination directed at him by multiple coworkers, as well as failing to rein in an SFMTA administrator, Shawn McCormick, who Georgopoulos alleged has engaged in discriminatory ticketing practices by targeting disadvantaged neighborhoods like the Mission, Bayview, and Excelsior.
Lee, the former deputy director of the SFMTA’s street team, made similar statements to Georgopoulos in a deposition last year.
The SFMTA denies Georgopoulos’s claims, instead declaring that Georgopoulos himself yelled at subordinates, and that there are multiple complaints against Georgopoulos for harassment.
Indeed, there are. In 2010, a tow truck driver filed a restraining order against Georgopoulos for violent behavior, and a co-worker accused him of sexual harassment the next year. Multiple others reported that Georgopoulos displayed violent and angry behavior at work. That same year, a limousine driver alleged that Georgopoulos sprayed him with pepper spray and punched him in the head.
On Friday, under oath, Lee, who was Georgopoulos’s supervisor, stated that he has only once ever witnessed Georgopoulos yelling at another coworker: McCormick, after he had allegedly called Georgopoulos, who is half Mexican, a “spick” in 2020.
Lee added that he advised Georgopoulos to “hide in the parking lot” to avoid McCormick, and not to come into the office.
“I thought it was in his own best interest to hide out,” said Lee. “Shawn [McCormick] did not like the way Elias [Georgopoulos] would challenge him … there was too much pressure going on, and I thought it was best he stay out of the way.”
Lee also advised Georgopoulos to avoid a second coworker, Sterling Haywood, another parking enforcement officer. Haywood, Lee said, “would try to get under his skin” and “intimidate him.”
Georgopoulos alleges that Haywood would repeatedly berate him for his height and sexually harass him. In an email shared with the jury on Friday, Georgopoulos wrote to Lee of an incident in which Haywood “got up in his face” and “balled his fists” during a disagreement, fearing that he would eventually get physical.
Before the mistrial was called, Lee said today that Haywood, who is still an SFMTA parking control officer, had multiple complaints against him for physical intimidation.
Then, during a tedious episode during which Lee was asked to confirm whether he was familiar with a number of documents on the SFMTA’s disciplinary measures, a dramatic turn of events ended with the SFMTA accusing Georgopoulos’ attorney of coaching Lee.
Lee testified that Georgopoulos’ attorney, Eduardo Roy, had approached him prior to the hearing, asking him if he was familiar with an SFMTA document he was given last week.
Flores reprimanded Roy for such a basic lapse. “I didn’t think I would need to give this kind of admonishment to a lawyer, because that is widely understood to be against the rules,” said Flores, citing his behavior as “improper.”
Roy’s time spent questioning Lee “has not been very productive,” the judge added, because Lee “confirmed a whole bunch of documents that were admitted into evidence anyway.”
For Georgopoulos, it’s just a few more days tacked onto a years-long wait. The trial will reconvene next week, bringing Lee and other SFMTA witnesses to the stand.
“I’ve waited four and a half years for this week,” said Georgopoulos after learning of the mistrial. “I’m deflated.” Georgopoulos’ attorney was also perturbed.
“We spent a long time selecting this jury,” said Roy. “We liked them, and they liked us.” They risk a less sympathetic one next week.
As the jury rose to leave the courtroom for the last time, one juror smiled in Georgopoulos’s direction, mouthing, “Good luck.”
So the unasked question is why did Lee tolerate that behavior?
And if he thinks he’s going to defy the court by hiding from a subpoena he’s even dumber than this article makes him seem.
Excellent story. I am convinced that the SFMTA is – like most City Hall departments – rife with corruption. It is ripe for an internal investigation. But I have the opposite problem in my neighborhood in Bernal Heights. Our meter guy never comes – except on street cleaning day – and even that is hit or miss. Our streets require parking permits – but they are never enforced – invidious taxation – I guess. This city is a dumpster fire and getting worse every day. And Daniel Lurie is in way over his head.