DPW employee arrested, charged with assault
Ragsdale also coached girls basketball at Loch Raven
A Baltimore City employee and high school girls basketball coach was arrested Feb. 18 and charged with second-degree assault and a fourth-degree sex offense.
A Department of Public Works employee reported to human resources and Baltimore Police that her supervisor, Jerome Odell Ragsdale, inappropriately touched her and propositioned her to have sex numerous times over several years, police wrote in charging documents.
Ragsdale, 51, works as a chief superintendent of the solid waste routine services section in the Baltimore City Department of Public Works and also coached girls basketball at Loch Raven High School in Baltimore County. He had an annual salary of $105,000 in fiscal year 2021, according to city data, and was named DPW’s employee of the year in 2020-21.
Blair Adams, a DPW spokesperson, declined to comment on Ragsdale’s employment status or the agency’s handling of the employee’s sexual harassment claims, citing the ongoing investigation.
The employee told police she did not hear back from DPW’s human resources after she reported Ragsdale last April. She reported him again to human resources and filed a police report in January. The Baltimore State’s Attorney moved forward with criminal charges against him Feb. 16. Ragsdale was arrested Feb. 18 and is being held at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center.
James Rhodes, Ragsdale’s defense attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
The DPW employee told police Ragsdale drove her to a hotel during work hours in March, pulled out cash and touched her over her clothes. She rejected his advances repeatedly and asked that he return her to work.
Six months later the employee emailed
Ragsdale that she was tired of his verbal abuse and offensive sexual actions toward her and told him to stop harassing her, police wrote in charging documents.
On another occasion Ragsdale propositioned the employee for sex in exchange for not moving her position at one waste management yard to a different yard, police wrote in charging documents. He also showed up at the woman’s house uninvited to solicit sex during another encounter, she told police.
The employee told police that when she reported sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations to DPW’s human resources department in January, her assistant supervisor told her Ragsdale would pay the woman $1,000 to recant her statement against him, according to charging documents.
The woman “stated that she always feared that Mr. Ragsdale and other people from the yard would be mad and retaliate against her,” police wrote in charging documents.
Ragsdale became Loch Raven’s coach ahead of the 2016-17 season. He has coached girls basketball at the school since 2014, working with both varsity and junior varsity teams. He was a volunteer coach with the Parkville High School boys basketball team from 1996-98.
When Ragsdale was absent from the bench Wednesday night during a loss in the Class 1A South Region I final, Loch Raven athletic director Mike McEwan told The Baltimore Sun that Ragsdale was dealing with a family emergency.
Loch Raven High School Principal Janine Holmes shared the “troubling news” of Ragsdale’s charges in a letter sent to parents over the weekend. She said Ragsdale is no longer under contract as a coach and does not have access to the team.
“These charges are disturbing and are a violation of our school community’s core values and the values of our school system,” Holmes wrote.
The school is offering counseling to students who may need a safe space to process the news, she said.