N.C. Senate Candidate Sam Page Faces Lawsuit Alleging Negligent Handling of Sexual Harassment Claims
WFMY first reported that Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page is facing a lawsuit alleging that he failed to maintain a workplace free from sexual harassment with a particular focus on a situation involving Captain Marcus Bullins. Bullins pled guilty six counts of sexual assault on a female. Page is mounting a primary challenge to N.C. Senate Leader Phil Berger.
Key quotes from the lawsuit:
Sheriff Page named Defendant Bullins as Captain of Patrol and third ranking member of the Sheriff’s Office behind only the Sheriff and Colonel Alan Farrar. Colonel Farrar and Defendant Bullins were close personal friends. In promoting Defendant Bullins to the third ranking position, Sheriff Page skipped over other, more senior and more qualified Deputies.
In his position as the third in command, Defendant Bullins developed a close relationship with the Sheriff. In an interview, Defendant Bullins described himself as a “buffer” between other Sheriff’s Office employees and Sheriff Page. As a result of Defendant Bullins’ role as “buffer” for the Sheriff, his close working relationship with the Sheriff, and his close personal friendship with Colon Farrar, Sheriff Page negligently failed to supervise Defendant Bullins’ conduct within the office.
While acting as a buffer to the Sheriff, and serving as the Sheriff’s third in command, Defendant Bullins made public, sexually harassing and demeaning comments to other Sheriff’s Office employees and engaged in other inappropriate conduct.
For example, during a command staff meeting in 2023 or late 2022, Defendant Bullins told a female Captain in the office that the Sheriff was in a bad mood and she should “rub up against” him to make him feel better.
Defendant Bullins then added that he would pay her $5.00 to get on the table and Dance for the Sheriff to cheer him up. Defendant Bullins then raised the amount to $10.00.
These sexually harassing comments were made in the presence of other Sheriff’s Office command staff and separately repeated in the presence of a county employee working in the Sheriff’s Office. The County employee informed Defendant Bullins that his comments were sexual harassment, to which Bullins replied that they were not.
During his tenure in the Sheriff’s Office, as a School Resource Officer, Defendant Bullins took a photograph of a female administrator leaning over, inadvertently revealing the top of her breasts. Defendant Bulls texted this photograph to another member of the Sheriff’s Office. On a separate occasion, Defendant Bullins took similar pictures of Sheriff Office Employees at a work dinner event, witnessed by the wife of a Sheriff’s Office employee, who expressed to her husband her disgust.
In 2022, unknown to Plaintiff at the time, Defendant Bullins sexually harassed Victim 1 on at least two occasions, occurring within the Sheriff's Office premises, while both the Defendant and Victim 1 were on duty. On both occasions, Defendant Bullins told Victim 1 to meet him in a conference room where he could isolate Victim 1 with no camera present. These acts included unwanted and unwelcome sexual touching and kissing. On or about November 27, 2024, Defendant pled guilty to two counts of Assault on a Female arising from this conduct.
On another occasion, without warning or consent, Defendant Bullins kissed a female employee of the County ("Victim 2") on her head in the Sheriff's Office breakroom, in the presence of the Sheriff's administrative assistant. Between approximately October 2022 and May 2023, Defendant Bullins sexually harassed Plaintiff on at least four separate occasions within the Sheriff's Office premises while both Defendant Bullins and Plaintiff were on duty. Like his sexual harassment of Victim 1, Defendant Bullins used his authority to isolate Plaintiff in his office and a conference room outside the view of cameras. These acts included unwanted and unwelcome sexual touching and kissing. On or about November 27, 2024, Defendant pled guilty to four counts of Assault on a Female arising from this conduct.
On November 20, 2023, Plaintiff and Victim 1 told Sheriff Page that each had been sexually harassed by Defendant Bullins. Plaintiff also informed the Sheriff of prior sex discrimination and intimidation by a Sergeant previously supervising the Plaintiff. According to the investigative report of Bullins’ conduct immediately following her conversation with the Sheriff Victim 1 was required to attend the Sheriff’s regular weekly command staff meeting where she was seated next to Defendant Bullins for over an hour. Sheriff Page later joined the meeting but took no immediate steps to remove Victim 1 from further contact with Defendant Bullins. Likewise, Sheriff Page took no immediate steps to remove Plaintiff from further contact with Defendant Bullins following the Plaintiff’s report.
Rather, Defendant Bullins was later suspended from the Sheriff's Office, with pay (upon information and belief), pending further investigation regarding his harassment of Plaintiff and Victim 1. During the suspension period, both Sheriff Page and the County negligently violated the Sheriff's Office and the County's personnel policy by allowing Defendant Bullins continued access to his work cell phone, to his office (as late as February 2024), to Sheriff's Office files, and to other property belonging to the Sheriff's Office and/or the County. The work phone was never recovered by the Sheriff's Office nor the County, but was allegedly destroyed while in Defendant Bullins' possession, despite the potential evidentiary value of the information, texts, photos and calls contained on the phone. Both the Sheriff's Office and the County failed to provide Plaintiff with an explanation regarding the failure to retrieve the phone or her personnel file. Defendant Bullins also maintained personnel files in his office, including a file on Plaintiff. According to an Assistant District Attorney, this file was never retrieved.
Both the County and the Sheriff negligently failed to provide Victim 1, Victim 2, or Plaintiff with adequate policies, training, or guidance on reporting sexual harassment within the workplace. Both the County and the Sheriff negligently failed provide Victim 1, Victim 2, or Plaintiff with accurate information regarding their legal protections against workplace harassment; or to provide such protections once reports of sexual harassment were made.
The Sheriff negligently created a workplace atmosphere that intimidated employees, especially females, and discouraged employees from reporting misconduct that related to the command staff and/or supervisory personnel. For example, Defendant Bullins told Victim 1 that as an employee of the Sheriff, she has to "play the game," meaning that she should not do, say, nor report anything that might upset the Sheriff or cause him a problem in the office. As a result of this atmosphere of intimidation, the Sheriff’s Office and County personnel were reluctant to report misconduct within the office for fear that such a report might cause retaliation or adverse consequences.
Despite Defendant Bullins' sexual harassment of other employees, his misconduct and sexually harassing language, which occurred even in the presence of the command staff, a County employee, and the Sheriff's administrative assistant, both Sheriff Page and the County negligently approved Defendant Bullins' performance evaluations, promotions, and pay increases between 2020 and 2024. Both the Sheriff and the County turned a blind eye to Defendant Bullins' sexual harassment of Plaintiff and others, and a blind eye to the hostile work environment that existed. Both the Sheriff and the County maintained a willful ignorance to the work conditions endured by Plaintiff and others, including the sexual harassment by Defendant Bullins and the sex discrimination and intimidation directed against Plaintiff by a previous Sergeant in the office.
Sherif Page’s Response
Sheriff Page has not yet responded to the Blue Ridge Times’ request for comment.
Page told WFMY, who first reported the story, that “He confirmed that the employees raised the misconduct concerns in November 2023 and said he notified the SBI and suspended Bullins immediately. After the SBI charged him, Page said Bullins' employment was terminated. Page claimed he followed the law and all procedures, and believes the lawsuit misrepresents the situation.”
Why it matters.
Page is running a primary challenge against Senate Leader Phil Berger, touting his law enforcement record. This lawsuit raises some serious questions about how Page ran the Sheriff’s office. In addition to this sexual harassment lawsuit, Rockingham County Jail, which is managed by the Sheriff’s office, lost its insurance policy over a failure to properly report inmate deaths. These two management situations undermine Page’s main campaign message on his law enforcement career.
