CARNAL NATION

A sticky-fingered nine-year old ultimately led to the city of San Jose offering a fire engineer $200,000 to settle a sexual harassment suit, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

Back in 2007, Julie LeBlanc found a dirty magazine under her son's pillow; when grilled about it, the kid said he got it from the men's room at the fire station, where LeBlanc worked as an engineer.  The angry mom searched the station when she went to work the next day and found over sixty dirty magazines laying around.  She reported the issue to her captain, who reported it to the city's personnel department, and an investigation ensued. 

Unfortunately for LeBlanc, her male co-workers didn't like her rabble rousing, and they started taunting her; one apparently refused to give her important work-related information (which is, you know, a big deal for the fire department) and someone left a copy of smutty magazine King laying out for her to find.

The city has a ban on pornographic materials in the workplace, even at the fire station, which serves as living quarters for on-duty firefighters.  But the city will claim no liability under the settlement, which was reached yesterday.  The city council must still approve the agreement, but if all goes well LeBlanc will be paid by January 15. 

LeBlanc has since transferred to another station.