An amended lawsuit filed in Deschutes County this week alleges that for years a long-time employee at Black Butte Ranch abused and harassed over a dozen employees, and the management at the time did nothing to help.
The lawsuit was first brought against Black Butte Ranch, former management and Glenn Michael Woosley – the man accused of harassing and abusing fellow employees – in June of this year. Since that initial filing, lawyers for the plaintiff say that four more former employees at Black Butte Ranch have come forward with similar stories of sexual harassment and abuse. Two of the recently added plaintiffs say they reported the incidents to management and human resources.
Charles Halper, one of the new plaintiffs, was a bartender at Robert’s Pub for nearly a year, from January 2021 until November 2021. He says he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Woosley while employed. The abuse included inappropriate touching, rubbing and harassing language, according to the amended complaint. Halper said that he told two of the defendants, Georgo Glinsky and Charles Carter, about the harassment but, “management took no action to stop Woosley,” according to the complaint.
Dillon McIntosh, who worked at Black Butte Ranch from March 2021 until August 2021 and was 17 years old at the time, was also added to the amended complaint and has similar accounts of abuse and inaction by management, according to the court documents. He said Woosley touched him without consent, massaging him, grabbing his butt and even rubbing his penis over his work clothes.
In total, the 13 purported victims are seeking $19.5 million for sexual assault and battery, gender and race discrimination, hostile work environment, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. Each plaintiff is asking for $1.5 million. The plaintiffs contend that the abuse occurred from 2020 until 2022 and took place, for the most part, during their working hours at Robert’s Pub.
Most of the former employees involved with the lawsuit were young men. Four of them were underage when the reported abuse occurred – ranging from 15 years old to 17 years old when Woosley is accused of inappropriately touching and propositioning them. Three of them are women. Woosley was in his mid 70s at the time and had worked at Black Butte Ranch for nearly three decades, according to his arrest report.
Woosley was fired in the summer of 2022 after three then-employees reported the abuse to Black Butte Ranch Police Department, according to a police report from that time. He was arrested in August 2022 and charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse and harassment, according to records. In May of 2023, Woosley pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual abuse and one count of harassment. according to his plea deal. According to his plea deal, he was given 30 days in county jail and a small fine.
Jason Kafoury, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, wrote in an email that since the lawsuit was filed in June, the Black Butte Police Department has interviewed “many more potential victims” and “some of those reports are now with the Deschutes County DA’s office for potential new criminal charges.”
In a statement, a representative for Black Butte Ranch wrote, “We acknowledge the difficulty and bravery of all the plaintiffs in their willingness to share their stories and pursue these claims. Black Butte Ranch takes these claims extremely seriously and we reiterate our support for any employee who experienced harassment from Woosley. We share the outrage of our employees at his actions.”
The trial is set for September 23, 2025.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 17, 2024.
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