ALBANY – A federal judge will allow a former employee at the state Office of Mental Health to proceed with a claim that she was raped by her supervisor at their office.
The ruling issued this week will allow the woman's rape claim – which is in addition to claims that include sexual harassment, retaliation and workplace discrimination – to go forward.
The employee is seeking at least $3 million in damages in the case filed last year against the agency, where her claim says she was fired after telling her supervisor she planned to speak with human resources about the alleged assault.
It started more than three years ago, when the employee started working at the state office in Albany. She's been allowed to remain anonymous in the case and is listed in the complaint as "Jane Doe."
She alleged that about a month after she started working for the state, Matthew Canuteson, her supervisor and the agency's chief diversity officer, began making sexual advances toward her, largely through graphic text messages.
But she said that she played into that behavior "in order to try to placate Canuteson and stay in his good graces in light of the control he exercised over her ongoing employment," according to the lawsuit she filed against him and the state last year.
That's how the relationship was for about another month, she said, until March 17, 2023. That's when she said Canuteson walked into her office, closed the door and, after a few minutes, locked it.
He allegedly approached her and, without saying anything, began to touch her body. She said she was "frozen with fear, anger and confusion" during the encounter and thought he "could and would physically overpower her" if she tried to escape.
But he then abruptly left her office without going any further, she said.
After that, she said she told him that evening that she did not want to have a sexual relationship with him. The texting continued, she said.
But in early May that year, she said she had a second encounter with Canuteson in which he closed and locked the door to her office again and began touching her. That's when, she said, he undid his pants and sexually assaulted her.
"Canuteson said nothing during the entirety of the assault," the lawsuit alleges.
"Again feeling paralyzed by fear and confusion, (she) was silent throughout the entirety of the time Canuteson was in her office and barely moved during the physical encounter," it said.
She did not immediately report either incident. But later that month, she said she stopped engaging with his sexual advances via text messages. That's when she said he "became increasingly confrontational" with her.
After about another month, in June, she said that she called to confront him about the allegedly hostile behavior. The next day, "he had decided to relieve her of her supervisory responsibilities," according to the lawsuit.
