A demoted Multnomah County employee has filed a civil rights suit against the county and her former bosses alleging they retaliated against her for complaining about unsafe conditions caused by large caseloads of high-risk clients with mental illness, insufficient staff and inadequate funding.
Katie Cleone Cecil, 46, contends managers encouraged her and others in the county’s Behavioral Health Division to mislead a judge about some of the criminal defendants who were not able to aid in their defense.
The employees were advised to say that mental health assessments of the defendants were in progress “even when no work had been done” and county staff had not made referrals to treatment or housing, Cecil says in her federal suit.
Cecil “refused to lie” to the Multnomah County judge, the suit says.
Judges use the county evaluations to determine where to place people who are accused of crimes but unfit to stand trial. The state faces a long-standing separate federal lawsuit over its lack of psychiatric treatment for so-called aid-and-assist defendants.
Cecil’s allegations highlight consequences at the county level from Oregon’s dysfunctional mental health treatment system.
Cecil filed complaints with a county human resources manager, with the county auditor’s Good Government Hotline and outside the county with the state OSHA and the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.
In response, her supervisor accused her of being a “whiner,” yelled at her in front of other staff, reduced...
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