Veterans charity operator must pay $1.5 million for repeated sexual harassment | News

WENATCHEE – Former thrift store owner and charity operator Thelbert M. “Thad” Lawson Jr. must pay $1.5 million to 12 women he sexually harassed in the workplace.

A Chelan County jury found Lawson, his charity, Operation Veterans Assistance and Humanitarian Aid, and his wife, Karen Jean Monroe, civilly liable Thursday for a series of harassment and retaliation incidents at the two Veterans Warehouse thrift stores he operated in Wenatchee and Kennewick. Jurors agreed with allegations by the Washington Attorney General’s Office that Lawson violated Washington’s anti-discrimination law on multiple occasions.

The jury’s decision came back late Thursday after eight days of testimony from victims and Lawson himself. Victims testified during the eight-day trial that Lawson sexually harassed or physically groped them and that they would be fired or otherwise punished if they filed formal complaints.

““The jury concluded that Lawson harassed seven employees of a thrift store by subjecting them to offensive and unwanted touching and by regularly asking questions about the employees’ sex lives,” the Attorney General’s office said in a press release following the verdict. “He made unreasonable demands, such as asking employees how often they had sex, whether they used sex toys, demanding sexual favors and asking employees to show him their bodies.”

Lawson also harassed five members of the public, including volunteers and customers at Veterans Warehouse stores in Wenatchee and Kennewick.

Lawson was previously convicted of assault in 2021 for harassing a woman who visited his Wenatchee store. Despite this, Operation Veterans Assistance and Humanitarian Aid, run by a nonprofit board with Lawson’s wife as president, allowed him to continue working in the stores and have contact with female employees.

All of the $1.5 million in compensation awarded by the jury will go to those victims, including $17,000 in back wages owed to Lawson’s injured employees. The Attorney General’s Office will ask Superior Court Judge Robert Jourdan to approve a motion seeking costs and fees from Lawson himself, as well as another prohibiting Lawson from supervising or harassing women in the future.