Re: Democrat sex offender Benjamin Chavis.

Black Leader Used N.A.A.C.P. Money To Settle a Sex Harassment Case

WASHINGTON, July 28— Without the knowledge of his board of 
directors, the executive director of the National Association for 
the Advancement of Colored People committed the financially troubled 
organization last year to payment of as much as $332,400 to a former 
employee who had threatened to sue him for sexual harassment, 
according to court records and N.A.A.C.P. officials.

In an out-of-court settlement between the executive director, the 
Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., and Mary E. Stansel, who was a deputy 
of his for a month last year, he agreed that she would be paid two 
lump sums totaling $50,000 and then six monthly installments of 
$5,400 each. Court records show that she has actually received at 
least $77,000 of that money.

But under another provision of the agreement, Mr. Chavis was to 
arrange for Ms. Stansel to find a job outside the N.A.A.C.P. that 
would pay her at least $80,000 a year. In the absence of any such 
job offer to Ms. Stansel within six months of the agreement, which 
was negotiated last November, the civil rights organization was to 
pay her an additional $250,000.

Ms. Stansel now contends that Mr. Chavis reneged on the promise of a 
job and is suing him and the N.A.A.C.P. in District of Columbia 
Superior Court for that $250,000.

Neither the court papers filed in the lawsuit nor the out-of-court 
settlement gives any details of the sexual harassment that the 49-
year-old Ms. Stansel alleges, and she declined to discuss the 
matter.

Lawyers for Mr. Chavis, 46, denied Ms. Stansel's claim of harassment 
and said she had obtained the out-of-court agreement by threatening 
his reputation with a fraudulent accusation. One lawyer said that 
Mr. Chavis had tried to find employment for Ms. Stansel but that his 
efforts had been thwarted because she had overstated her 
qualifications.

The legal battle with Ms. Stansel comes at a time when Mr. Chavis is 
already fighting off critics within the N.A.A.C.P. and among its 
supporters, who have been angered by his financial management and 
his overtures toward Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of 
Islam, among other matters.

Several of the organization's 64 board members said today that they 
had been unaware not only that Mr. Chavis had entered into the 
settlement but also that he had even been accused of sex harassment. 
A number of them reacted with shock and outrage when told of the 
agreement.

"I don't know a thing about it -- not a word," said Marc Stepp of 
Detroit, chairman of a special board committee that is trying to 
raise money to reduce the N.A.A.C.P.'s estimated debt of $3 million. 
"This is a moral fraud. I did not know. I had not been advised as a 
board member that this case had occurred and the settlement was 
effectuated."

Joe Madison, a board member who has had frequent run-ins with Mr. 
Chavis and who had learned of the case by the time a reporter called 
him today, said, "I think I'm on safe ground in saying that no 
agreement of this magnitude can be entered into without a review by 
the general counsel and a review and a vote of the national board of 
directors."

No Mention at Meeting

Several board members said that at a meeting of the full board 
during the recently concluded N.A.A.C.P. convention in Chicago, Mr. 
Chavis and William Gibson, the chairman, were asked whether there 
were any suits pending against the organization. Both men replied 
that they were unaware of any, these officials said.

In fact, though, the N.A.A.C.P. had been served with papers on June 
30 -- 10 days before the start of the convention -- informing Mr. 
Chavis and the organization that they were being sued on the ground 
of breaching the out-of-court settlement.

Mr. Chavis could not be reached for comment on the settlement or the 
lawsuit. But in court papers, his lawyers deny the accusation of 
sexual harassment. And in an interview, one of Mr. Chavis's lawyers 
said the executive director had entered into the settlement under 
duress, to avoid unfair and nasty publicity.

"She threatened him with litigation, reminding him that a lawsuit 
would put him in position where his credibility would be 
questioned," said this lawyer, Abbey G. Hairston.

Ms. Hairston said Mr. Chavis had been "placed under a great deal of 
duress because of these threats."

She also said he had made a good-faith attempt to obtain employment 
for Ms. Stansel but had been hindered by her refusal to update her 
resume and by her lack of qualifications for the annual salary of at 
least $80,000 that she was demanding.

"There was one interview set up," Ms. Hairston said. "She didn't 
show up," and Mr. Chavis had to call the prospective employer, a 
Federal agency that Ms. Hairston declined to identify, and say that 
Ms. Stansel had a family emergency.

Ms. Hairston said that after a rescheduled interview, Mr. Chavis 
received word "that they were not impressed, that she did not have 
the skills and would not get the position." Ms. Hairston also said, 
contrary to the account of some board members, that the settlement 
had been negotiated with the knowledge of the N.A.A.C.P.'s in-house 
counsel, Dennis Hayes. Mr. Hayes's office referred all questions to 
the organization's communications office, where spokesmen could not 
be reached for comment today.

Statement by Chairman

Ms. Stansel, a former legislative assistant to Senator Howell 
Heflin, Democrat of Alabama, was among those who helped lobby the 
N.A.A.C.P. board to select Mr. Chavis as executive director in April 
1993. Mr. Chavis brought her into the organization that month as an 
administrative assistant, but she was let go after a few weeks.

In a statement issued late this afternoon, Mr. Gibson, the chairman, 
said that Ms. Stansel had been hired only as an "interim assistant" 
and that "it was later determined that her services would not be 
needed."

Mr. Gibson's statement, issued several hours after he had declined 
to be interviewed about the matter by a reporter who had called his 
office in Columbia, S.C., did not address other board members' 
complaint that they had known nothing of the settlement. Nor did it 
say whether Mr. Gibson was aware of the new lawsuit when he and Mr. 
Chavis were asked at the convention whether any legal battles were 
pending.

Ms. Stansel and Mr. Chavis reached their out-of-court agreement on 
Nov. 12, 1993. It was "entered into in lieu of" a civil action 
against Mr. Chavis and the N.A.A.C.P. for job discrimination, sexual 
harassment and wrongful discharge, court papers filed last month by 
Ms. Stansel say.

In the settlement, Mr. Chavis formally agreed, on behalf of himself 
and the N.A.A.C.P., to give Ms. Stansel $80,000, in lump-sum 
payments of $35,000 immediately and $15,000 15 days later and in six 
monthly payments of $5,400.

According to Ms. Stansel's court papers, she received the lump sums 
and five monthly installments, meaning she has actually been paid at 
least $77,000.

The agreement also committed Mr. Chavis to obtaining interviews for 
a job that would pay Ms. Stansel an annual salary of at least 
$80,000. If the position paid less than that amount, the N.A.A.C.P. 
was committed for two years to making up the difference between 
$80,000 and the position's actual salary.