He was fired over an email asking the prosecutor about her underwear. He said it was a mistake

A former victims’ advocate who was fired after emailing the San Francisco District Attorney’s response asking, “What color panties are you wearing?” is suing the county, alleging he was defamed and You haven’t been able to find work since you clicked submit on the website. infamous email.

Jovan Thomas, 56, was fired on January 26, shortly after sending the email that circulated on social media. Screenshots of the email appeared to show Thomas making the inappropriate inquiry in an office-wide email in response to a message from San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins.

Screenshots of the email prompted Jenkins’ office to issue a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle clarifying that Jenkins had no relationship with Thomas and calling the message “misogynistic behavior” that violated the office’s code of conduct.

But according to the complaint, Thomas didn’t intend to send the inappropriate email to his boss. Instead, Thomas says the message was intended for a fraternity friend, “who was distraught and mourning the death of his father.”

Thomas “intended to text the friend a joking question, the type that the complainant had sent the friend occasionally in the past in order to cheer him up,” the complaint states. “In the context of their long-standing friendship, plaintiff’s inverted question had no sexual, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning.”

But according to the complaint, just before Thomas planned to send the text message to his friend, he received a calendar invite from Jenkins.

Instead of sending the message to his friend, Thomas pressed “reply all” and sent the message not just to Jenkins, but to the entire staff at the district attorney’s office.

The complaint names Jenkins, the city and county of San Francisco, the district attorney’s office and a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office as defendants.

In the complaint, Thomas’ lawyer states that the message could not have been interpreted by office employees in any way other than an error.

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“Absolutely no one who received Plaintiff’s email could reasonably have believed that Plaintiff had actually asked her boss, the San Francisco District Attorney, what color underwear she was wearing, whether seriously or as a joke, much less in an email sent to the entire team of the defendant SFDA,” the complaint states.

The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for the San Francisco city attorney’s office said he would respond in court.

Immediately after sending the message, Thomas sent another office-wide email apologizing and trying to explain the error, according to the lawsuit.

“While texting with my fraternity brother, I sent a very inappropriate email,” the message read, according to a screenshot circulated on X. “I am sincerely sorry and would never do such a thing on purpose.”

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Later that day, Richard Ng, director of human resources at the Public Prosecutor’s Office, notified Thomas that he was being fired.

In the complaint, Thomas alleges that it was the district attorney’s office that contacted members of the press, shared the email, and also informed reporters that Thomas had a prior sexual harassment complaint filed against him.

In 2018, Thomas was sued by a woman identified only as Jane Doe, who had been the victim of an assault and met Thomas through the Bayview Victim Services office.

The woman accused Thomas of inviting her to his home, where they had sex. Thomas was later dismissed as a defendant and a judge found the county innocent.

In the complaint, Thomas’ attorney, R. Michael Lieberman, called the sexual harassment lawsuit “meritless” but accused the district attorney’s office of pointing out the complaint to reporters.

The suit was first reported by the San Francisco Standard.

Contacted by phone, Lieberman declined to comment on the case.

The complaint also states that the prosecutor’s office did not explain in its public statements that the email had been a “crazy email” sent in error, but instead described it as “misogynistic behavior.”

Statements made by the prosecutor’s office, the complaint alleges, made Thomas “an object of discredit and ridicule.”

As a result, Thomas has been unable to find employment since being fired, the suit alleges.

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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.