U.N. Pays Sexually Harassed Employee -- High-Level Argentine Diplomat's Conduct Secretly Investigated

UNITED NATIONS - For the first time in its half-century existence, the United Nations has settled a sexual-harassment case, in favor of a New York City staff member who sued a high-level Argentine diplomat for assaulting her in his office.

In a terse statement released by secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali's spokesman, Joseph Sills, the organization said it had granted Catherine Claxton $210,800 in damages and legal fees, nearly seven years after the incident.

Claxton, an American citizen employed permanently at U.N. headquarters, sued Luis Maria Gomez for grabbing and fondling her in his office in 1988, while she was working for him. She also said he blocked her career promotion after she rebuffed his advances.

Gomez was U.N. controller at the time, with one of the organization's top ranks - assistant secretary-general - and had diplomatic immunity from prosecution. When Gomez resigned earlier this year as a result of Claxton's charges, he was undersecretary-general of the U.N. Development Program.

The case, first made public in 1992, led Boutros-Ghali to introduce the first U.N. policy on sexual harassment.

An Irish judge, Mella Carroll, appointed by Boutros-Ghali to hear the case behind closed doors, found Gomez guilty, but the secretary-general ordered the report be kept secret.

Claxton's attorney, Mary D. Dorman, said yesterday that representing the U.N. staffer had been "absolutely bizarre" because hearings were conducted in secret.

"The secretary-general is the final word on everything at the U.N., and he was very close to and relied very heavily upon Gomez," Dorman said.

U.N. officials refused to comment on the settlement, and the statement says that "no further public comments will be made about this case."

Ciceil Gross, who retired as a senior U.N. lawyer after 25 years in the organization, said yesterday the settlement was "the first chink of daylight seen on the subject at the U.N."

But she added that since Claxton, who is a coordinator of counseling for U.N. employees, received a "piddling amount" after years of legal hearings, "the lesson women at the U.N. have learned from this is to keep your heads down."

Nonetheless, the U.N. statement says Boutros-Ghali is setting up a new task force to formulate a method of hearing sexual-harassment cases "in a fair and timely manner, so that the long road traveled by Ms. Claxton . . . will not be repeated."