Priscilla M. VASCONCELOS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Edwin MEESE, III, Attorney General; U.S. Department of Justice, Defendants-Appellees

Priscilla M. Vasconcelos, a female Hispanic who had been employed in the U.S. Marshal’s Service by the Department of Justice, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEOC”) complaint in which she charged the Marshal’s Service with sexual harassment. She lodged a similar complaint with the Marshal's Service’s Internal Affairs Office. She later raised retaliation as an issue. Her EEOC complaint was not resolved within 180 days of filing. During an Internal Affairs investigation conducted by the Marshal’s Service as a result of the sexual harassment charges, Vasconcelos lied. She was subsequently fired. She then filed a Merit Systems Protection Board appeal. The Board upheld her termination. Thereafter she filed this Title VII action in the district court. Following a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for the defendants.

In this appeal, Vasconcelos challenges the district court’s findings of fact as being clearly erroneous, and she argues the court erred in its conclusions of law. She also argues that the defendants failed to establish that her gender was not a motivating factor in her termination, and that we should remand this case to the district court for further…