U.S. State Department Contractor SOC Fired K9 Expert After She Reported Obscene Behavior and Requests
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 3, 2025) — On January 24, a federal jury found that SOC LLC, a State Department contractor, exposed a female former employee to illegal sexual harassment while she protected the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
SOC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Day & Zimmermann, a giant, privately held conglomerate based in Philadelphia.
The jury’s verdict awarded Tracy Sargent $1.825 million in damages after an eight-day trial in Washington, D.C. before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. The award included $1.6 million in punitive damages for SOC’s illegal failure to stop the actions of a manager who acted with “malice or reckless indifference” toward the rights of Ms. Sargent, a K9 expert who managed an SOC team that handled bomb-detection dogs.
Jurors learned that Ms. Sargent had already worked very successfully for a different contractor at the Baghdad embassy, burnishing her strong reputation in security and canine operations. SOC recruited her, hiring her in mid-2017 and swiftly promoting her to Operations Kennel Master. Throughout her stint with SOC, Ms. Sargent testified, she faced pervasive harassment from male colleagues and from a key State Department official, whom she was instructed to keep “happy” by doing “whatever he wants.”
Ms. Sargent testified that, in one instance, she was confined in a car with the State Department official and SOC employees while they spoke luridly about pornography and sex acts that they enjoyed, referred to women as “bitches” and “whores,” and repeatedly told her she should kiss a nearby Iraqi soldier to “get him off.”
Ms. Sargent is represented by The Employment Law Group® law firm. Her lawsuit alleged that SOC subjected Ms. Sargent to a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
After alerting SOC to the harassment — and also to a range of security and safety concerns — Ms. Sargent returned to the U.S. for what she believed would be a temporary respite, she told jurors. Her attempts at follow-up were met with inaction, however, and she was fired without proper notice shortly after the lewd State Department official sent SOC a “loss of confidence” letter about her.
The State Department subsequently investigated the matter and rescinded the letter, finding that Ms. Sargent did nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been fired, jurors heard.
R. Scott Oswald and Adam Augustine Carter, principals of The Employment Law Group, represented Ms. Sargent at trial along with TELG associates Briana L. Scholar and Alexa Calomiris.
“Tracy was hired to protect U.S diplomats and personnel, and she did that job with distinction,” said Mr. Carter. “SOC owed her protection in return, but instead they exposed her to harassers and predators — and after she asked them for help, they fired her.”
“SOC completely failed Tracy,” said Mr. Oswald. “This company claims that it values the safety of its employees, but here it put money first, second, and third. SOC had no staff in Iraq who could help Tracy, and then its U.S. executives sided with her harasser, who held the purse strings. This jury decided not only to compensate Tracy for what she suffered, but also to rebuke SOC with punitive damages — a rebuke that it richly deserved. Tracy’s courage and strength are inspirational, and her victory here is a sharp warning to any company that doesn’t protect its employees.”
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Case Information
Sargent v. SOC LLC
No. 1:19-cv-620
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Original complaint filed on March 6, 2019
Fourth amended complaint filed on September 2, 2022 (available here)
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About The Employment Law Group
The Employment Law Group® law firm represents whistleblowers and employees who stand up to wrongdoing in the workplace. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm takes cases nationwide.
