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Federal regulators sue Favorite Farms over alleged rape, firing of migrant worker

 
Favorite Farms in Hillsborough County is being sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly firing a migrant worker after she reported that her supervisor sexually harassed and raped her. Pictured is one of Favorite Farms' signs from 2009. | Times file photo
Favorite Farms in Hillsborough County is being sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly firing a migrant worker after she reported that her supervisor sexually harassed and raped her. Pictured is one of Favorite Farms' signs from 2009. | Times file photo
Published May 31, 2017

DOVER — A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says a woman was fired from Favorite Farms Inc. in eastern Hillsborough County after she reported that a male supervisor raped her. She is a migrant farm worker.

"No employee should be subjected to sexually degrading conduct as a condition of employment," Robert E. Weisberg, attorney in the EEOC's Miami office, said in a statement. "Migrant farmworkers are no exception. They are an important but vulnerable segment of our labor force whose civil rights this lawsuit seeks to protect."

According to the suit, the woman had to obtain a restraining order against the supervisor following sexual harassment and rape because the Dover-based farm did not conduct any investigation into the supervisor or take action.

A representative of the farm could not be reached for comment Wednesday.