▶ HARASSED

for several months, Ward filed formal sexual harassment and retaliation complaints with the board’s executive director, Edward Cousineau, and former deputy executive director, Todd Rich, both of whom work out of the board’s main office in Reno, it said. Rich said he would investigate her claims, while Cousineau threatened her job, according to the complaint.

Nothing was done, however, and the harassment only grew worse after Ward filed the complaints, it said. Andreas allegedly encouraged several of Ward’s co-workers to participate in the “general hostility” in the office.

Among other things, Ward’s colleagues refused to take messages and pass them along, sabotaging her cases, and kept information about upcoming hearings and board meetings from her to make her appear incompetent, the complaint states.

Ward also filed a discrimination complaint against the medical board with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in June of 2016.

Other allegations

While the sexual harassment claims form the core of the lawsuit, Ward also levels numerous allegations of unprofessional conduct by various members of the board. Among them, the complaint alleges that:

■ Andreas held personal vendettas against certain physicians, whom he targeted by keeping cases open after doctors were cleared of accusations.

■ Board officials closed several investigations of malpractice concerning high-profile physicians.

■ Doctors sued by a major insurance company for fraud had malpractice cases administratively closed. Those cases accused doctors of misuse of spinal cord and cervical injections and opioids.

■ Opioid overprescription investigations were delayed, including those resulting in death. The delays were part of an overall pattern of mishandling of overdose cases that included closure after lab reports were misread.

■ Female co-workers in the Las Vegas office favored by Andreas were promoted to investigative positions even though they lacked required bachelor’s degrees.

■ Ward, who has a bachelor’s in criminal justice from the University of Colorado, was denied a promotion to senior investigator and received poor marks from Chief of Investigations Pamela Castagnola on an employee review because she inquired about the position.

Ward was placed on administrative leave in September, one week after a co-worker made “a false and unsubstantiated claim” that Ward had harassed her. She is still on leave, according to the complaint.

Contact Jessie Bekker at jbekker@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Follow @jessiebekks on Twitter.