The U.S. Postal Service is investigating harassment charges Sari Cohen '94 filed against a Hanover postal worker, who she said harassed her based on the assumption that she is a lesbian.
Cohen alleges that the postal clerk ripped up a dollar bill stamped with the words "Lesbian Money" when she tried to use it to purchase an envelope on Jan. 13. He then chastised her for trying to pass off what he called "lesbian money" as U.S. currency, she said. The entire stamp measured about half a square inch.
The clerk's name is Paul Small, according to Cohen, who said she learned the name from a Secret Service representative, who contacted her after reading about the incident in several New England newspapers. Cohen said she did not get the clerk's name at the time of the incident.
Richard Griffin, manager of the Postal Service's Hanover branch, refused to confirm or deny that Small was the clerk in question. Small said he could not comment because he was given a gag order from his superiors at the post office.
Bob Gioff, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said the Post Office has not yet determined whether the incident was harassment. He said he has been in contact with workers in the Hanover branch and "the whole situation is being reviewed."
"Administrative action is pending," Gioff said. Griffin said the decision might include requiring sensitivity training for the clerk.
But when he interviewed the clerks at the Hanover branch, Griffin said he received two statements that contradict Cohen's story. "It's possible that by the clerk asking this young lady for another dollar bill, she went off the deep end," he said.
"I have a strange feeling about this," he said. "Was she looking for something when she came in?"
The Secret Service became involved because defacing currency - by stamping a dollar bill, for example - is a federal crime, Cohen said. But Curtis Eldrich, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said he could not comment on the incident, even to say if it is under investigation.
But Cohen, who said she received the "Lesbian Money" stamp as a present and used it to stamp several bills, said the incident was harassment and the clerk was not protesting the use of defaced money.
"At no time did this employee say anything like, 'I can't accept this dollar because it is defaced' or 'defacing bills is illegal, did you deface this?'" Cohen wrote in her Jan. 14 letter to the U.S. Postal Service's consumer affairs department in Manchester.
Cohen said she had entered the Main Street post office on Jan. 13 between 4 and 5 p.m. and set $1.50 on the counter to purchase a large padded envelope.
When the clerk told Cohen he could not accept the stamped dollar bill, she said she thought he was joking. And when she argued with the clerk that the dollar was legal U.S. tender, Cohen said the clerk told her it was "lesbian money."
"Tell your friends not to come in here and use that money. I don't accept that money," the clerk said, according to Cohen.
Cohen said she asked if the clerk was referring to the lesbian stamp on the dollar and he responded by ripping the bill in half, saying "This is what I think of your money."
Cohen said the clerk them threw the ripped bill in a drawer behind the counter and told her she could keep the envelope. She said that as she left the room, he shouted, "I have my rights too."
"At first I was shocked because I thought it was a joke," Cohen said. "Immediately afterward I was incredibly frustrated. I couldn't think of anything I could do to let this guy know how upset I was - to change what he's done."
Despite Cohen's allegations, Griffin maintained that his clerks do not discriminate against homosexuals.
"I've got gay people who own post office boxes here and they get their stuff - we don't discriminate," he said. "I've got letters from customers that say they have no problems here."
