TCC professor, target of plot to kill, files suit

VIRGINIA BEACH

A Tidewater Community College professor has filed a lawsuit against the state and her former TCC supervisor who hired a hitman to kill her after she lodged a sexual harassment complaint against him two years ago.

The lawsuit, filed in Circuit Court, alleges that the state did not investigate or take any action after Kimberly Perez's repeated claims of harassment and intimidation by former professor Jay Glosser.

Perez and Glosser worked together at the college's Norfolk campus.

The complaint also alleges that her state employer did not supervise Glosser despite knowing he had a history of inflicting "emotional distress" on women with whom he had or wanted to have a romantic relationship.

The lawsuit, which seeks $5 million in damages, comes after Perez, an associate professor in computer science, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit last month against three college administrators who, she said, did not protect her from Glosser.

Glosser, who taught information systems technology, is serving an 8-1/2-year sentence in prison after he was convicted in the murder-for-hire scheme involving two other men. Glosser placed a $10,000 contract to kill Perez if she did not recant sexual harassment claims against him.

The 17-page state court complaint, like the one filed in U.S. District Court, alleges a pattern of behavior that began in February 2006 with inappropriate sexual advances and progressed to his sending her flowers, leaving romantic missives on her car's windshield and late-night telephone calls.

When Perez rejected the overtures, Glosser engaged in a "campaign to terrorize" her at work by altering her proposed teaching schedule, entering her locked office without permission and producing a fabricated MySpace page with a sexually explicit poem and a photo of Perez, according to Jeremiah Denton, her attorney.

Perez complained to several college administrators, but she said their inaction allowed Glosser's behavior to escalate in May and June of 2006 when he contracted a hitman. The plot was thwarted after authorities set up a sting.

Duane Bourne, (757) 222-5150, duane.bourne@pilotonline.com