Suit: FBI Taped Cicero's Dominick in Sex Harassment Case

Gas passing, groping, sexual advances and illicit sexting — all part of explosive allegations against Cicero Town President Larry Dominick, according to a bombshell Chicago Sun-Times story.

Dominick had been the subject of a separate sexual harassment suit filed by another town employee when Sharon Starzyk secretly recorded a conversation with Dominick in his office, where he allegedly told her to lie if questioned about his sexually charged behavior.

“He insisted I deny, and I said. . . I tell the truth and I lose my job, and I lie and I go to jail,” Starzyk testified under oath in a deposition, according to the Sun-Times. She said the FBI asked her to record the conversation.

Starzyk, the town's former director of animal welfare, was later fired on the grounds she mismanaged Cicero's animal shelter, Waggin' Tails. She says her ouster was retaliation for filing her own sexual harassment suit, in which she alleges Dominick repeatedly sent her dirty text messages, made lewd comments and groped her, once "picking her up by the crotch."

A copy of the 2009 complaint is attached to this story as a PDF. The Sun-Times outlines more of the allegations:

Dominick repeatedly groped her or touched her inappropriately and sent her text messages in which he suggested she should perform oral sex on a black man — using a racial slur — or engage in a threesome with two of Dominick’s friends — an unlicensed plumber in his late 50s, and the Cicero town collector, Fran Reitz. Starzyk said she showed the messages to people but no longer has them.

She goes on to describe a 2009 incident where she, Dominick and a town secretary drove to an animal rescue site. The secretary left the car, then Dominick “turned around and grabbed a breast, passed some gas, got out of the car."

In a deposition, available for download at the Sun-Times site, Dominick alleges the sex was consensual, that he'd visit Starzyk's house and "play with her dog and eat there and once in a while whatever came up sexually," including "four to six, seven" sexual trysts.

Asked about the meeting in his office with Starzyk, Dominick in a deposition pleaded the Fifth Amendment, allowing him to refrain from possibly incriminating himself.

Separate from the sexual allegations, Dominick testifies in his deposition about the pair's QVC shopping sprees and his getting beat to the punch on a patent for a smoke detector disguised as a Christmas ornament.