“In a lot of cases we see people engage in blind ignorance,” Maria Bourn, Bowyer’s attorney, said of the state’s response to Buras’ alleged activity. Bowyer claims state officials refused to investigate her accounts. “They saw what was happening with their eyes wide open and they ignored it and allowed it,” Bourn said in an interview.

A Cal OES spokesperson, Brian Ferguson, said the department does not comment on personnel matters and active litigation. Ferguson said that, as of noon Tuesday, the department had yet to be served with the Bowyer lawsuit.

“Sexual harassment in the workplace is an affront to our values as an organization. It has no place in Cal OES and it will not be tolerated in any form,” he said.

After publication, the spokesperson added, “Upon Cal OES learning of the allegations, Cal OES hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation. Privacy considerations limit our ability to share confidential information. Cal OES, however, took appropriate action upon conclusion of the investigation following the determination that no policy was violated.”

The lawsuit points to broader dysfunction in the state hub for major emergencies and disasters. Buras was also named in an earlier complaint, filed in late 2020, that was brought by Steven Larson, another former employee of Cal OES. In that lawsuit, which attorneys for Larson expect to go to trial, Larson alleged that Buras sexually harassed at least four women. Larson claims he raised the issue with his superiors in senior management and was terminated.

Bowyer’s lawsuit claims that Buras sexually harassed her between 2020 and 2022 — because the department failed to investigate Larson’s claims. Buras was appointed by Newsom in 2019, arriving from Maryland after serving in several positions at the Federal Emergency Management Agency since 2005.

Bowyer says she met Buras in January 2020 during a disaster response that winter. He was married to the state’s former Labor Secretary Natalie Palugyai, had two children, and she claims he was overly friendly with her, including asking her to dine alone with him. He made a comment to her about a coworker, identified in the lawsuit as Tom, believing that the two were “sleeping together.”

On the early deployment, Bowyer claims to have worn a one-piece bathing suit instead of a bikini to a hotel pool because she felt uncomfortable around Buras. He allegedly told her that “this is where marriages go to die,” a reference to the extramarital affairs that took place on deployments.

For more than a year, she claims, Buras’ advances continued, including touching her nonconsensually, attempting to meet alone in her hotel rooms, grabbing her hand in public, texting and calling late at night and, at one point, crawling into bed with her. In another encounter, he urged her to “look at this big bed” when he tried to stay in her hotel room.

In an interview, Bowyer told POLITICO that she felt increasingly uncomfortable around Buras but was worried about retaliation. She said Buras made it “very clear” that he had what he referred to as a “DTM list” — a directory of names he said stood for work subordinates and colleagues who were “dead to me.”

Bowyer said she knew two colleagues who were on Buras’ DTM list. “I saw how he had completely cut them off from everything. Both of those individuals had to end up leaving because of the repercussions of being on that list,” Bowyer said.

It’s unclear whether those employees also spurned Buras’ advances or upset him in some other way.

“Telling me about this list, it was almost like he was letting me know, ‘You do this to me, and the same is gonna happen to you,’” she added. “That’s how I felt.”

Bourn said state employees in disaster recovery are vulnerable because the job often isolates them in remote areas in the aftermath of fires or floods and much of their life revolves around work. Bowyer spent long periods on the road living out of hotels, driving a rental car and having her day-to-day expenses covered by work.

“For these workers that are doing disaster relief, they’re particularly vulnerable to this kind of conduct and also vulnerable to severe retaliation because if they don’t comply or they’re not complacent, or they complain and are fired, they lose their home and vehicle, they lose everything,” Bourn, Bowyer’s attorney said.

Buras would call Bowyer late in the evening, checking in on something from work and then often pivoting to his personal life, the lawsuit alleges. He called her “caring and supportive,” said “I wish I had someone like you,” and referred to his spouse at the time as his “soon-to-be ex-wife.”

“I don’t know how many times he talked about what a terrible mother she was and how guilty he felt that he was out in California and not back on the East Coast taking care of his kids,” Bowyer said.

Bowyer said Buras planned a surprise Christmas trip with her.

Bowyer says the effects of Buras’ harassment didn’t stop when she resigned. “I’ve had to do lots of counseling and therapy and medication and reflection and a change of careers,” she said. “My entire life has been turned upside down, so it’s been a real struggle.”

Bowyer says she was told that her direct supervisor forbade her from working remotely. Then, she says Buras called her and told her she could work remotely from her home state outside of California. She claims he would call frequently to talk about his personal life, and suggested meeting with her and her family in her home state.

At the same time, Bowyer says Buras was skipping over her immediate boss and assigning her tasks, causing her to be resented for apparent preferential treatment.

Before Bowyer told Buras he was acting inappropriately and to leave her alone, he planned the surprise Christmas trip, sending her dates to leave free on her calendar and instructing her that she needed a passport, she said. He called her sometime later and she wrongly assumed that, perhaps, he wouldn’t start to ignore her.

“At the end of the conversation, he said, ‘So I assume by your text that this means we’re not going on the Christmas trip,’” she recalled. “And I said, ‘No, we’re not going on any Christmas trip.’”

Bowyer said Buras answered ‘OK,’ and hung up. “And that was when the stonewalling and the blacklisting, and everything began,” she said.

She says he made it impossible for her to do her work and that his aides accused Bowyer of falsifying her timesheets and failing to do her job. She says Buras icing her out, and making himself the only one eligible for approvaling disaster recovery such as tree removal, slowed Cal OES’ ability to deliver relief and put people in danger.

When the country sought answers, Bowyer said Buras wrongly blamed her.

Bourn said the treatment was noticed by their co-workers.

They “told Kendra, ‘I don’t know what you did. You went from being his golden child to now being on his ‘dead to me list’. And if you could do that, then it’s pretty shocking,” she said.