VOLUSIA EXPOSED.COM

Fire Service Sexual Harassment Investigation in which two fire captains were fired for not reporting alleged sexual harassment. Questions - Did the IA investigator already know about the harassment? Were county tax dollars wasted?

Updated November 30, 2010

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."- Abraham Lincoln


In August 2007 the Volusia County Fire Service apparently received an anonymous complaint that female Fire Fighter Chorost was engaging in unauthorized activities within a Volusia County Fire Station. Volusia County started an investigation into this anonymous allegation in October / November 2007. Per county records, this investigation was conducted by Volusia County Department of Public Protection
Internal Affairs Captain K. Modzelewski.

During this investigation into her alleged activities,Fire Fighter Chorost apparently reported her concerns about a Fire Fighter Nordquist to the IA Investigator Modzelewski. Apparently Fire Fighter Chorost concerns about Fire Fighter Nordquist centered around the same issues that she later documents in May 2008. (see the below attached letter - first three pages of a eight page letter).



Chorost wrote the May 2008 letter, in which she once again reported her concerns of sexual harassment to Fire Commander A. Millwater. Commander Millwater drafted the below letter to his supervisors in which he expressed his beliefs that these matters needed to be properly addressed by Volusia County Fire Services / Volusia County Department of Public Protection.


Apparently in response to Commander Millwater's report, Volusia County Department of Public Protection (VCDPP) opened a lengthy and expensive internal affairs investigation into Fire Fighter Chorost's allegations. Below is the final investigative report file by VCDPP Internal Affairs Investigator Modzelewski.


Within the Final IA Report, Modzelewski appears to document that Chorost reported sexual harassment allegations against male fire fighter(s) (to include Nordquist) - that apparently transpired from December 2004 to May 30, 2008. These dates are significant, since Modzelewski had conducted his investigation against Fire Fighter Chorost in October 2007. Therefore, the question is whether Chorost took the time to advise Modzelewski during the October 2007 investigation of her concerns surrounding the alleged sexual harassment and in regards to Fire Fighter Nordquist? Further, if Chorost did report her concerns to Modzelewski in 2007, did Modzelewski follow up on her concerns, either by investigating them or reporting them up his chain of command? And if he did not, then why not?
Modzelewski's alleged knowledge would be of significance, since in the May-October 2008 investigation, Modzelewski found two of Chorost's supervisors (Fire Captains Moak & Whalen) at fault for allegedly not reporting Chorost's concerns of sexual harassment up the chain of command, so those allegations could be properly investigated. Obviously, if Modzelewski knew of the alleged sexual harassment in October 2007, it would appear that Modzelewski's knowledge was prior than that of both Captain Moak and Whalen. If so, then it would appear that Volusia County spent tens of thousands of dollars conducting an investigation attempting to discover who failed to properly report the alleged sexual harassment, when appearances are that, the IA investigator conducting the investigation was himself, guilty of failing to report it. We are not able to address these questions? Rather, we ask the reader to review the attached paperwork and draw their own conclusions.
It appears significant that when Investigator Modzelewski was questioning Commander Millwater's during his sworned statement (July 3, 2008), Modzelewski in the particular questioned Millwater, if Chorost had ever reported to him whether she had reported her concerns in the past to any other parties. Millwater appears to respond that Chorost reported to him (Millwater) that she had advised Modzelewski of her concerns during his earlier investigation of her (October 2007). Please read page 25 of Commander Millwater's sworned statement. Now, re-read the last two paragraphs of page 3 of Fire Fighter Chorost's May 2008 statement -- is she also stating that she reported her concerns to the IA investigator (Modzelewski) in October 2007?




IF Modzelewski already knew about the alleged sexual harassment -- then how could Modzelewski make an investigative conclusion that Captains Moak and Whalen failed to properly report the alleged sexual harassment? Wouldn't Modzelewski be as guilty (if not more) to any guilt that could be attached to Captains Moak and Whalen? Did Modzelewski report Chorost's concerns when he apparently became aware of them in October 2007? Was there a witch hunt started against Moak and Whalen to cover up Modzelewski's (and maybe others) knowledge of the alleged sexual harassment and their failure to act? We don't know, but the documents tend to offer that as a possible conclusion - but we leave it to you the reader, to draw your own conclusions.
However, these questions need to be answered. Why? Because this investigation cost the taxpayers of Volusia County a large sum of money. This investigation took over five months, over thirty employees gave sworn statement, these statement were taken and transcribed by a local court reporting agency (at apparent great expense). We have secured via public records the invoices paid in the taking of these sworn statements. Coupled with the man hours spent on this investigation, we estimate that the cost of this investigation could be in the ten's of thousands of dollars. The Taxpayers of Volusia County need to know if this is a typical "investigation" by VCDPP internal affairs. We remind the public that VCDPP IA personnel have been entrusted to investigate other matters, such as the Beach Patrol statutory rape cases and questionable inmate deaths at the county jail. How confident can the public be of a fair and accurate investigation, if in this Fire Service investigation, the IA investigator was allowed to find two fire captains guilty of failure to report alleged sexual harassment that the IA investigator had probable knowledge of prior to the two fire captains involvement?




Further we ask the reader to once again review the Final IA Report prepared by IA Captains Modzelewski and Dofflemyer. We fail to see where any sexual harassment was sustained by this internal affairs investigation. Therefore, we raise the question of why there was an out of court settlement between the County of Volusia and Fire Fighter Chorost? Documentation supports the existence of this "pre-suit" settlement - please see page 8a of Assistant County Attorney Nancye Jones' application for a Circuit Court Judgeship - Mrs. Jones documents a "pre-suit" settlement with Fire Fighter Chorost. Was this pre-suit settlement unrelated to the sexual harassment allegations? Apparently, per Modzelewski's and Dofflemyer's 2008 investigation, Chorost was not sexually harassed - was the settlement in response to the failure of the county to properly address her concerns of sexual harassment? And if so, who failed to report these concerns, Captain Moak and Whalen in 2008, or the IA investigator it was apparently reported to in October 2007?
We are unsure - these questions remain unanswered - but in order to get a better handle on what transpired, the Chorost settlement papers have been secured via public records. Maybe, being able to understand why the County thought it was necessary to settle with Chorost, we can find some answers to the above questions. Please feel free to review the Chorost pre-suit settlement and other documents connected to this investigation / incident (see below).





We have secured a copy of the actual pre-suit settlement - see below.



Thousands of dollars spent to discover who failed to properly report Fire Fighter Chorost's allegations of harassment. Does it appear that the investigator that was assigned to find the guilty party, was most probably the guilty party?