Red Cross helped an executive accused of misconduct work with children

A nurse at MedStar Washington Hospital Center took notes as Paul described the night she says Gerald Anderson assaulted her. See the document.

Feeling fuzzy, Paul stumbled out of bed, bumping into what she remembers as a coffee table. She put her clothes on. Anderson drove her home to Washington from what turned out to be northern Virginia.

“I was in total shock so I just believed him,” Paul said.

She took a shower and got dressed. “I was just on autopilot,” she said. “I went to work and was totally numb.”

That morning at the office, she took a break and went to the pharmacy around the corner and got the morning-after pill. She told her friend and coworker Alicia Fairfield what had happened. Fairfield confirmed the account to ProPublica.

Paul says she got an email on her work account from Anderson that day saying he had a great time and couldn’t wait to do it again. “I was horrified. I [said], ‘Last night was a huge mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about this again.'”

The next day, Saturday, Paul spoke on the phone to her mother, who recommended she call the local rape crisis center. They directed her to MedStar Washington Hospital Center, near where Paul lived in Mount Pleasant. Paul and a former roommate, who confirmed the account to ProPublica, went to the hospital together. Both said Paul had no history of blacking out from drinking.

The medical records of Paul’s exam, which an independent expert reviewed at ProPublica’s request, are consistent with her account. The exam indicates there was sex, but rape kits cannot prove whether there was consent. According to the records, Paul told the nurse, “I never found this guy attractive, I never flirted with him or considered engaging physically with him, and then the next thing I remember it was early morning, I was in bed.”

Paul suspected she had been drugged. But when she told the hospital she did not want to report the episode to the police, they told her that only the police would test for date-rape drugs. So Paul still doesn’t know for sure what explains her roughly 10-hour memory gap. The doctor did prescribe a 30-day course of drugs for HIV prevention. The side effects, including nausea and temporary vision blackouts, were “brutal,” Paul said.

Paul decided not to report anything to her bosses at the Red Cross. “I just got this permanent job. I’m going to have this great career,” she recalled thinking. “I was positive that if I said anything the repercussions for me would be very great and for him it was non-existent.” She worried she wouldn’t be believed and regretted sending Anderson an email she thought could be used against her.

Paul and Anderson had little further interaction until several weeks later, in late January or early February of 2011 when she wrote a letter to him and left it on his desk. She no longer has a copy of the letter but recalls it saying something to the effect of, “What happened was absolutely not consensual. I suspect you drugged me. My only hope is that you’ll read this and understand what you’ve taken from me and choose not to do it again to someone else.”

She never got a response. She tried to avoid Anderson at work. She signed up for a martial arts self-defense class in Washington and sought therapy.

Beyond saying that Anderson has not engaged in sexual misconduct, Anderson’s attorney declined multiple requests to answer detailed questions about Herland’s and Paul’s allegations.

About 18 months later, the leadership of the Red Cross received reports of the allegations against Anderson. Paul, who had recently left the charity to go to graduate school at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, called another young female staffer considering taking a job under Anderson and told her what had happened. The staffer told a boss, and Paul and Herland decided to speak with investigators. As Herland put it in a Sept. 22, 2012, email to Red Cross management, they were concerned “that his behavior follows a dangerous pattern.”

The matter ended up in the charity’s Office of General Counsel. Top officials brought in Jeffrey Larroca, an attorney at the firm Eckert Seamans who regularly represents the Red Cross when it is sued in employment cases.

Over the course of several weeks, Larroca interviewed Paul, Herland and at least two others. Four people familiar with the investigation told ProPublica they regarded the inquiry as shallow. Larroca did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“I was surprised that the investigation didn’t go further — they didn’t dig deeper,” said Fairfield, Paul’s then-coworker. When Fairfield was interviewed, “They didn’t ask me about any experiences I’d had with Jerry Anderson,” she said.

“It was very clear that his objective when conducting those interviews was about protecting the interests of the Red Cross,” said Herland. “It was clear he was trying to poke holes in the story.”

In Paul’s case, the investigators did not seek to get the records from the rape kit, didn’t contact her friend who accompanied her to the hospital, and didn’t reach out to a Red Cross employee who she had told about what happened.

Another Red Cross employee who did participate was told by an in-house attorney that the charity was not keeping records associated with the investigation, according to a September 2012 email obtained by ProPublica. “They are not making any records, not using email, only discussing in person w/ pen and paper and then destroying those notes after every discussion,” the email said.

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In a statement, the Red Cross denied this. “Records were maintained for this investigation, but they remain confidential to protect the privacy of the parties involved,” the charity said.

Standing by its investigation, the charity said: “The American Red Cross has zero tolerance for sexual harassment and has policies in place to enforce that, as evidenced by the corrective actions we took resulting in the resignation of Jerry Anderson more than 5 years ago.”

Several experts on workplace harassment said that investigations by employers are often beset by conflicts of interest.

“Having a slipshod investigation is very common,” said James M. Cooney, a professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations who teaches employment law. “It’s critical that the investigator be as impartial as possible. It would be problematic for an employer to use its regular defense attorney because of the potential conflict.”

When the investigation was over, Herland got an Oct. 23, 2012, email from an in-house Red Cross attorney saying, “We found merit to your complaint.” When Paul didn’t hear anything, she called the same attorney, Mary Elizabeth Cisneros, who told Paul, “Your statement was helpful,” according to contemporaneous emails.

David Meltzer (via The Red Cross)

Meltzer, who was senior vice president for international services, then sent out the email announcing Anderson’s departure and praising him.

When Herland saw the email praising Anderson, she said, “It made me physically sick to read. I was incredibly angry. It was a clear slap in the face to those of us who put ourselves out there.”

A few days after the email, Meltzer convened the staff meeting in which he also praised Anderson and said he wished Anderson were staying.

Eight days after Meltzer sent the email praising Anderson, the Red Cross announced Meltzer was being promoted to general counsel of the entire organization. In that position, which he still holds, he oversees the charity’s handling of misconduct cases and is directly responsible for the Red Cross’ Office of Investigations, Compliance & Ethics. In a statement, the Red Cross said Meltzer’s promotion had long been in the works and was unrelated to his handling of the Anderson case.

In February 2013, Anderson was hired as a senior director for humanitarian response at Save the Children, where his direct boss was Robert Laprade.

Laprade himself had previously worked for years at the Red Cross, where he worked closely with Anderson on the relief effort after the Indian Ocean tsunami. According to several current and former staffers, the two are personal friends. Laprade told ProPublica in a statement that he only learned last week about why Anderson left the Red Cross in 2012. “I never had any reason to think there were problems as I worked with him for five years and my observation was that he was professional,” Laprade said.

Save the Children has a reputation in the industry for in-depth background checks. The group said its recruiter conducted interviews and background checks on Anderson, as well as receiving the positive reference from the Red Cross.

Save the Children said there have been no allegations of misconduct about Anderson during his time there. Anderson has since been promoted and is now associate vice president of humanitarian response.

Justin Elliott Talks About Reporting This Story on NPR’s Morning Edition

For many years, the aid industry has been beset by scandals in which workers committed sexual abuse against vulnerable people in war and disaster zones. But it wasn’t until recently that the industry began to look inward at the problem of harassment and violence by staffers against other staffers.

Reuters reported in November that aid groups, including Save the Children International, had fired dozens of staffers for harassment in the past year. Save the Children US told ProPublica it has received three reports in the past year of sexual harassment.

A 2017 report on harassment by a task force that includes the international Red Cross federation found that “good practices are not widespread” and there “is little capacity to identify and address repeat offenders” or share information between organizations.

In the U.S., organizations are generally not legally required to reveal misconduct when a prospective employer calls for a reference, according to Janice Bellace, a professor of business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Many have a policy of not disclosing why an employee left, partly because of a fear of lawsuits. “There are real cases where a person sues for defamation,” she said.

Aid industry observers say the failure to share information between organizations can perpetuate problems involving sexual misconduct.

Christine Williamson, an expert who consults with aid organizations on human resources issues, said, “I have seen people move around who have gone through the disciplinary process, come out with a confidentiality agreement, and move on to another organization without really paying the price.”