Doctor denies charges of sexual harassment

BATON ROUGE, LA. — The fired Indian American medical director of Louisiana’s corrections department is suing the agency, claiming sexual harassment allegations lodged against him are false and defamatory.

Dr. Raman Singh, who filed the lawsuit on November 27 in district court, is seeking damages from the department, Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc and his accuser.

The lawsuit says the employee accused Singh of sexually harassing her last month at a conference at the Golden Nugget Casino and hotel in Lake Charles. Singh denies the accusation. He’s asking a judge to declare him factually and legally innocent of sexual harassment.

Corrections department spokesman Ken Pastorick confirmed Singh was terminated this month.

According to a media report, Jill Craft, one of Singh’s attorneys, said on November 28, "Make no mistake, sexual harassment is a tremendous scourge on society and should never be tolerated," adding: “However, in this case, Dr. Singh is innocent and appears to have been swept up in the fervor gripping our nation."

Singh also demanded a full and fair investigation and that the state obtain the casino tapes, the suit says.

Singh claims in his suit that department officials offered him a deal on November 7 that if he resigned, all records of the probe, including any and all complaints, would ‘disappear,’ but he refused to resign and was fired on November 22.