Update: Suit Alleges Oak Park Employee Fired After Gay Harassment

Update, Tuesday 2:20 p.m. Oak Park-River Forest Patch has secured a copy of the complaint and has updated Monday's story with more deatils from the lawsuit.

A veteran Oak Park maintenance worker is suing the village amid allegations that he was harassed on the job for his sexual orientation and eventually fired.

The only hangup? He's still employed.

"I actually saw him at Village Hall [Monday] morning," said Oak Park communications director Dave Powers.

Michael Aguayo alleges in the lawsuit  he was repeatedly harassed after disclosing his gay sexual orientation in Nov. 2007, taunted with fake information about getting fired, overheard repeated comments about malfunctioning or bad equipment as "being gay" and was subject to comments like "come outside and settle this like a man."

Aguayo suffered emotional and physical distress because of his "hostile workplace," causing him to seek treatment, miss days at work and lose "the enjoyment of the pleasures of every day life," according to the complaint.

The suit, filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court, also alleges Aguayo's public works supervisors failed to intervene. Instead, they reprimanded and demoted him before Aguayo was eventually fired.

Yet Monday, village officials said Aguayo remains employed as a maintenance worker in the village's public works department. He has been employed with Oak Park since 2001.

"He's still here," Powers said. "He's not a former employee." 

Powers declined comment on the lawsuit, saying village officials hadn't seen a copy yet.

The six-count complaint seeks at least $600,000 in compensatory and exemplary damages, as well as the cost of litigation and attorney's fees. 

Reached by phone Monday, Aguayo's attorney Maurice Dusky declined to comment before abruptly hanging up.