The Volusia County Sheriff's Office's former evidence manager who retired in December did so three days after learning he was under investigation after being accused of creating a hostile work environment and sexual harassment, according to Internal Affairs documents obtained Tuesday.
Jody Thomas was notified of the Internal Affairs investigation on Dec. 8, 2017, the same day the complaint was received by Chief Deputy John Creamer. Thomas submitted his retirement letter to Sheriff Mike Chitwood on Dec. 11, the report states, before the investigation, which ended up sustaining the allegations, was completed.
"Due to health issues and under the advise of my physician, I am retiring effective immediately," Thomas penned in his retirement letter.
Thomas could not be reached.
According to IA investigators, the complaint made by evidence facility worker Rachael Jemison accused Thomas of unwanted comments of a sexual nature and hostile work environment. Creamer ordered the investigation.
Thomas previously worked for two decades as an officer at Daytona Beach Police Department. Weeks after Sheriff Mike Chitwood began his former job as Daytona Beach's police chief in May 2006, he asked Thomas — the second-highest ranking officer in the department at the time — to retire.
Thomas resigned and was hired by then-sheriff Ben Johnson as evidence manager with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office on Nov. 6, 2006. At the end of his Sheriff's Office tenure he was being paid $35.76 an hour to run the evidence facility, said sheriff's spokesman Andrew Gant.
The investigation completed last month states that Thomas, identified in IA reports by his full name of Harold Jody Thomas, was hostile to his co-workers and made inappropriate sexual comments to at least two women at the evidence facility west of DeLand.
Jemison reported Thomas would make sexual comments about her body and things that she should do sexually to her boyfriend, the report detailed.
"He'd tell me when I gain a little weight my tits and ass would fill out and it makes me look a lot better," Jemison said Thomas told her.
Jemison reported the sexual comments would occur whenever she would sign out keys at the key box near Thomas' office. The harassment got so bad that Jemison would ask another employee to get the key so she could avoid Thomas, the report states.
When Jemison had a cast on her leg and used a knee scooter, Thomas one day asked her where she was going and when she said she was going to the front office, Thomas made a suggestive comment, "Yeah, that's where you belong, on your knees," investigators said.
On one occasion, Jemison came to her office to find Play-Doh shaped like a penis on her desk. Jemison said she wasn't sure where the sculpture came from.
"But had I known it came from Jody? ... if it were to come from him, yes I would have been pissed because he's already a pervert," Jemison said, according to the IA report.
Another employee, Lauren Mandese, revealed to investigators that Thomas made comments about another female co-worker's buttocks and at one time commented to Mandese that she needed to change the color of her hair from blonde to black, documents state.
Thomas told Mandese that the change in hair color must "make her husband really excited because it's like a new women (sic)," investigators wrote in their report.
The evidence manager also boasted of how he tried to hold Jemison's hands saying "let's pretend we are together" although Jemison told him it was disgusting. Thomas thought it was all a joke but Mandese said she thought it was "weird" and "creepy," records state.
The report did not list when the comments attributed to Thomas were made.
Investigators also said Thomas created a hostile work environment by picking on them or yelling at them, the report states.
In one example told to investigators, Thomas got angry and yelled at the assistant evidence facility manager, James Whitaker, when Chitwood and members of the media showed up at the facility on Dec. 8 so reporters could photograph guns taken from a person, who was taken into involuntary custody for mental evaluation, investigators said.
Thomas thought someone was out-maneuvering him and trying to make him look bad by not telling him the sheriff and reporters were coming, the report stated. Jemison's complaint was filed the same day.
Another time Thomas was accused of bullying co-workers into writing a report that the assistant manager didn't feel was required since Whitaker believed a deputy had miscounted seized money handed in to the facility.
Evidence technician April Jenkins said she had to write the report because Thomas was slamming his fist on a table saying that no one was leaving until the report was written.
Jemison, Mandese, Whitaker, and another technician, April Jenkins, interviewed in the investigation, still work at the evidence facility, Gant said.
"The job yes. Working for Jody as time progressed over the years? Not so much," Whitaker responded, when IA investigators asked him if he enjoyed working at the evidence facility.
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