A former manager at Market Basket is facing criminal charges for allegedly sexually harassing female employees at the company’s supermarket in New Bedford.
Four alleged victims and two alleged witnesses told The Public’s Radio that a former assistant manager, Juan Ernesto Tzoc-Lol, would frequently touch his coworkers inappropriately, make sexually lewd remarks, and in some cases show pornography to them at work.
Two of the alleged victims, both recent immigrants from Guatemala, described suffering especially persistent harassment. They said Tzoc-Lol, who is 24, threatened to use their status as undocumented immigrants to punish them if they spoke out. He would also allegedly threaten them with violence at times.
“That man has often said that if he cannot hit a person, he hires people to harm them,” Sofía said in Spanish. Sofía, who is 22, asked that her real name be withheld to protect her from retaliation.
“He told me no one is going to believe you because you are an indigenous person and because you don’t speak English and because you don’t have any papers or citizenship in the United States,” Sofía said.
Both Sofía and Dayana, who requested anonymity for similar reasons, said they were undocumented when Market Basket initially hired them. Sofía and Dayana raised concerns to supervisors about Tzoc-Lol’s behavior, they said, but waited to obtain federal work permits before filing an official complaint with Market Basket’s corporate office in January.
“He started to harass me by touching my hands, touching my shoes,” said Dayana, who is 21. “He would touch my face.”
“He even asked me intimate questions. He said that one of his friends told him that all women masturbate and that any woman who says they don’t is a liar,” Dayana said. “And he also asked me how often I have sex with my boyfriend. Many, many times.”
“When I felt harassed, I told him to stop doing that because I don’t feel good,” Dayana said. “He would say things like, ‘You’re not a saint.’”
“‘As if you have no sins,’ he would say to me,” Dayana said.
Market Basket brought in an internal investigator to review the complaint against Tzoc-Lol. A spokesperson for the company, Justine Griffin, said Market Basket takes harassment claims seriously and has a process for managing them.
“Despite interviewing multiple people, the findings of the investigation were inconclusive,” Griffin said in a prepared statement, “but the investigator did determine that the employee violated company policy with some of his behavior.”
Griffin declined to comment on the nature of the policy violations. The company initially addressed the violations by relocating Tzoc-Lol to another Market Basket location in a nearby city.
The four alleged victims interviewed by The Public’s Radio all said they found the company’s response insufficient.
“What bothers me most is that the only solution Market Basket has is to move around the people who harm women,” Sofía said.
Laura, an American citizen who recently turned 18, had also accused Tzoc-Lol of touching her inappropriately. She said Tzoc-Lol initially seemed like a friendly coworker before he began touching the sides of her waist at work, asking lewd questions and talking about his genitalia.
“The people at Market Basket didn’t believe us,” said Laura, who also asked that her real name be withheld. “So we took it to the police, and they heard what we had to say.”
New Bedford police officers interviewed four women this winter who accused Tzoc-Lol of harassment. The women also worked with a local workers’ rights center, Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores, to address additional workplace complaints through other branches of the legal system.
In March, a clerk magistrate at the New Bedford District Court held a hearing to review the sexual harassment accusations made in the police reports. The clerk magistrate, Peter J. Thomas, issued a felony charge of intimidating a witness and misdemeanor charges of harassment and assault against Tzoc-Lol, who was arraigned on March 27.
Tzoc-Lol pleaded not guilty. He and his lawyer both declined to comment.
After The Public’s Radio provided copies of the court documents to Market Basket, the company’s spokesperson issued a statement on April 8 saying that Market Basket terminated Tzoc-Lol.
“We have now learned that criminal charges have also been filed against him and his employment has been terminated,” Griffin said.
In the months since the women reported Tzoc-Lol, all four women continue to work at the company’s New Bedford supermarket. Coworkers and managers who used to be their friends, they said, now view them with suspicion.
“They’re backing him up because they’re friends and not looking at the evidence at all,” Laura said. “I don’t talk to anybody at work now.”
Dayana and Sofía said the stress of experiencing and reporting harassment also contributed to serious health problems for them. Dayana said she developed eczema and a form of stomach inflammation called nervous gastritis that causes her to vomit blood. Sofía said she has become depressed.
“I even tried to take my own life, because they told me that I was a liar, that I was hurting an innocent man, when in reality that man is the worst,” Sofía said.
Still, all of the women said they do not regret speaking out about Tzoc-Lol.
“I personally feel that no woman should be sexually harassed to keep a job,” Dayana said. “That is why one comes fleeing from the country where we come from, because there is a lot of violence, a lot of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and all those kinds of things in our country.”
“Even if they send him to jail or not, I just don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable while working,” Laura said. “I would work 10 hour shifts. Imagine being in a place for 10 hours feeling uncomfortable, knowing that there’s someone who could touch you at any moment.”
“I want justice, because I believe in the justice of the United States,” Sofía said. “Justice is that you take my word, look for evidence and take all that evidence to court, because Market Basket has told us that there is not enough evidence.”
“I want that man to pay and not do these things to other girls,” Sofía said.
