LOS ANGELES — A jury awarded a female Los Angeles police captain $4 million in damages Friday in her sexual harassment lawsuit against the city over a nude photograph that was doctored to look like her and shared around the department.
In reaching the verdict after a day of deliberations, the Los Angeles County Superior Court jurors found that the sharing of the photo of a bare-breasted woman whose face was digitally altered to resemble Capt. Lillian Carranza. a 33-year department veteran, created a hostile work environment. They agreed with her lawyers that the top brass did nothing to stop its circulation or explain the image was a fake despite her plea to the police chief to do so in 2018.
Jurors also found that the LAPD did not take immediate and appropriate corrective action to address the hostile environment as required by state law, after Carranza reported the photo in November 2018 as she endured "severe or pervasive" harassment.
