Coun. Rick Chiarelli bullied and harassed a young employee by offering to pay her to pick up a man from a Montreal nightclub and perform a sexual act on him, according to a report by the city of Ottawa’s integrity commissioner. Karen Shepherd’s report, released late Friday afternoon, is the third series of damning findings about Chiarelli’s conduct to come out of the integrity commissioner’s office since 2020. It comes in the wake of a formal complaint by a woman who was in her early 20s when she worked part-time in Chiarelli’s office from 2013 to 2015. The woman previously told the CBC that the College’s department adviser launched a weeks-long campaign in 2014 to pressure her to perform oral sex on a stranger in exchange for cash. The CBC agreed not to name the woman. Her identity is also spelled out in Friday’s report. The integrity commissioner’s investigation looked at five allegations made by the woman when she made her formal complaint in January 2022 about Chiarelli’s conduct. Two of those complaints, Shepherd wrote, were ultimately deemed to involve violations of the city council’s code of conduct — including the woman’s allegation that Chiarelli drove her to a club in Montreal and watched her in his van’s rearview mirror as she performed oral sex on a man I just met.
“Shame, shame and disgust”
Like many other women who have spoken to the CBC, the woman said in an interview earlier this year that it was difficult to explain why she did not leave her job in Chiarelli’s office. He said Chiarelli would threaten to ruin her reputation if she resigned and feared repercussions if she left on bad terms. She also said she had a “treatment procedure” and despite her fear, he convinced her to stay. The woman told both the CBC and the integrity commissioner’s office that Chiarelli started a “joke” with her via text message that she wasn’t good at oral sex — and that he was planning the trip to prove that she was. According to the complaint detailed in the report, the woman’s work involved going with Chiarelli to clubs on Fridays or Saturdays to meet “mostly men” and getting their contact information “for future use by the office or the campaign of”. Other witnesses confirmed that it was part of the woman’s job. On one of those nights, the woman said she met a man at a bar who wanted to go home with her. The two ended up in the back seat of Chiarelli’s truck, and according to the report, the woman — who he said at the time was “slightly intoxicated” — began performing oral sex on him as Chiarelli drove through downtown Ottawa. The woman said she remembered turning her head and seeing Chiarelli watching in the mirror. The man was too nervous to ejaculate, which led to Chiarelli’s subsequent pressure campaign, the woman alleged in her complaint. [Chiarelli] knowingly and continuously exploited the power dynamics of the employer/employee relationship.”——Karen Shepherd, City of Ottawa Integrity Commissioner The woman testified that Chiarelli eventually suggested she go to Montreal one night and if she could make another man ejaculate, he would pay her about $250. While he initially rejected the idea, one evening in the fall of 2014, Chiarelli took it up, according to the report. The couple went to Montreal, where the woman said Chiarelli dropped her off at a nightclub and waited outside. Once inside, the woman met two men. Chiarelli told her via text message to bring one of the men outside — which the woman said was “very convincing” as the man was “nervous and scared,” according to the report. Once in the backseat of Chiarelli’s van, the two began kissing and eventually the woman resumed oral sex, the report said. At one point, the woman recalled seeing Chiarelli’s eyes watching them through the mirror. Eventually, Chiarelli dropped the man back at the nightclub and the two drove back to Ottawa. The whole incident made the woman feel “uncomfortable, embarrassed, ashamed and disgusted,” according to the report. The woman also told investigators that she agreed to participate only to stop Chiarelli’s previous harassment. According to the woman’s complaint, Chiarelli never harassed her again because she was bad at oral sex. City of Ottawa integrity commissioner Karen Shepherd, seen here in 2016, says she was able to substantiate two of the woman’s five allegations against Chiarelli. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Universal denial
Chiarelli has repeatedly denied allegations of misconduct against him by several former employees and job applicants, and the latest complaint is no different. Investigators interviewed Chiarelli twice about the woman’s allegations, first in May 2022 and then in June. According to Shepherd’s report, he denied the woman’s account of the trip to Montreal “completely,” arguing that she would not have time to make trips to Quebec nightclubs so close to the October 2014 municipal election. He also denied that going to nightclubs was part of the woman’s job and that he ever bothered her. Shepherd, however, found Chiarelli’s answers unconvincing. He wrote that — even if there was no evidence that oral sex was part of the woman’s job or that Chiarelli ever paid her money — Chiarelli’s molestation claim was substantiated “on a balance of probabilities.” “I have found it [Chiarelli’s] The actions … constituted harassment and intimidation of a young female member of staff,” Shepherd wrote. “I have also found that [Chiarelli] knowingly and continuously exploited the power dynamics of the employer/employee relationship.” Ultimately, Chiarelli “should have known his behavior was inappropriate and unwelcome,” Shepherd wrote.
Documented complaint of “revealing” shirt
The other complaint Shepherd found credible involved the woman’s claim that in September 2013, Chiarelli gave her a “sheer and revealing shirt” with a neckline that fell to her navel, one she was expected to wear to the Ottawa International Animation Festival . He also claimed that Chiarelli expected him to change the shirt in his car while he was still there. Chiarelli also denied the incident ever happened. Shepherd wrote that two other complaints, however, could not be substantiated:
That Chiarelli instructed the woman to go on a date with a volunteer they had met at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. That Chiarelli discouraged the woman from reporting a sexual assault in the summer of 2014 to the appropriate authorities.
A fifth complaint was not investigated because it involved allegations that occurred before the city’s code of conduct was implemented in July 2013, Shepherd wrote. Chiarelli had already been the subject of a lengthy investigation by the city’s former integrity commissioner, Robert Marleau, which led to the issuance of two scathing reports in 2020. The first of these centered on three job applicants whose allegations included Chiarelli asking them to go braless to events and hitting on men in bars to sign them up as volunteers. Protesters hang bras outside Chiarelli’s office as part of a protest in May 2022. (Frédéric Pepin/CBC) The second examined the complaints of two of Chiarelli’s former executives. Their allegations included Chiarelli talking about their bodies, suggesting they not wear bras to events, pressuring them to share intimate details of their lives and routinely reminding them they could be fired at any time. In that report, Marleau described Chiarelli’s actions as “incomprehensible incidents of harassment.” He described the councillor’s behavior as a “shocking and stunning failure to treat the complainants with the respect due to him and required by the code of conduct”. After those reports were made public, the board voted to suspend Chiarelli’s pay for 450 days. They unanimously asked him to resign, as provincial laws did not give them the power to force him to resign. However, Chiarelli did not resign. Although he expressed interest in running for another term as College representative, he ultimately did not file his re-election papers. Shepherd’s report calls on the city council to suspend Chiarelli’s pay for another 90 days, although he will no longer be a sitting councilman as of Nov. 15. It also recommends that the board ask Chiarelli to apologize for his actions, either verbally or in writing. The report is due to go to the city council on November 9.
