State investigators want the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office to pay up for allegedly forcing out a prosecutor who raised concerns in 2021 that her male colleagues were getting promotions because of their gender.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries filed the administrative complaint, similar to a lawsuit, earlier this year — the strongest rebuke yet against former District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who has long claimed the complaints were a pretext to push back against his reformer mindset.

In this case, the labor bureau is demanding $725,000 in lost wages and damages on behalf of former prosecutor Amber Kinney. The agency also wants all managers at the DA’s office to receive anti-discrimination training for the next five years.

Kinney, who was hired as a deputy district attorney in 2008, had risen up the ranks when she first raised whistleblower concerns in September 2021 about promotions happening due to sex discrimination. She resigned from her $178,000 job the next year, and in August 2022, she filed a written complaint with the labor bureau.

In 2023, BOLI issued a report backing Kinney’s version of events and conflicting with an outside investigation Schmidt had commissioned. He lost his reelection bid to prosecutor Nathan Vasquez in November 2024.

Schmidt isn’t named in the complaint, and declined to comment.

It’s not clear if Vasquez will fight the civil rights complaint, given that his election last year was based on a repudiation of Schmidt’s policies.

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