A former bartender for Alary’s Bar is suing the organizers of the St. Paul Winter Carnival and eight members of the 2005 Vulcan Krewe, alleging she was offered money not to cooperate with a police investigation.
The civil suit, which was filed last week in Dakota County, seeks monetary damages and attorney’s fees in connection with a sexual assault that occurred at the bar Feb. 1, 2005.
According to the suit, the plaintiff was one of three bartenders instructed by Alary’s to change into special Vulcan Krewe shirts. After receiving lap dances from strippers at a stag party, the eight Vulcans went into the bar wearing hoods, goggles, capes and running suits that hid their identities.
Vulcan King Thomas C. Trudeau then performed a “garter ritual” on each of the bartenders, running his hands up their legs while his crew surrounded them in a tight circle, “taunting and chanting for him to go higher and farther, ” according to the suit.
The suit also alleges that Trudeau penetrated each woman with his fingertips while the Vulcans held up their capes around her, obscuring the view. The women said they were blocked from leaving and groped on the chest and buttocks.
“There was sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, and no one should be subject to that,” said Robert V. Espeset, an attorney for the plaintiff, who was 19 at the time of the alleged assault.
The suit alleges that a Winter Carnival representative later approached the bartender and offered her money not to talk to police. The St. Paul Festival and Heritage Foundation, which organizes the carnival, is named as one of 10 defendants.
Foundation attorney Robert G. Haugen said that person could have been lying about his affiliation. “It was certainly no one employed by the festival foundation,” he said.
Espeset said the suit was filed in Dakota County last week because at least two of the defendants live there.
In a legal response filed last month, Patrick T. Tierney wrote that the bartender voluntarily participated in the garter ritual and that the Vulcans had no control over Trudeau’s actions. Tierney represents seven of the Vulcans and their organization, the Imperial Order of Fire and Brimstone.
Trudeau’s attorney, Deborah Ellis, said the allegations were “wildly overstated.”
Trudeau pleaded guilty in June 2005 to fifth-degree sexual misconduct, a gross misdemeanor, and was ordered to pay fines, undergo counseling and do community service, but he admitted at the time only to touching the women’s inner thighs.
Two of the women filed suit in Ramsey County in October 2005, seeking monetary damages from Alary’s Bar owner Albert D. Baisi Jr., the Festival and Heritage Foundation, the Imperial Order of Fire and Brimstone and the eight Vulcan Krewe members. That case is still pending.
Lori Peterson, an attorney for two of the women, said the Vulcans have shown no remorse for their alleged participation.
“The defendants are, in essence, saying that because these women did what their employer, Baisi, told them to do that they somehow asked for this abuse,” Peterson said. “Let’s be clear: They didn’t ask to have their vaginas penetrated or their breasts grabbed by these disgusting pervs.”
Frederick Melo can be reached at fmelo@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2172.
Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.