ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – A woman has filed a lawsuit against four people over a former St. Louis County official’s sex tape, seeking at least $25,000 in damages.
The woman filing the lawsuit claims she was in a video recorded by Calvin Harris, the former chief of staff to the St. Louis County Executive, and never gave consent to recording or disseminating it. Harris abruptly resigned in June 2022, around the time the sex tape began circulating, per the lawsuit.
The lawsuit contends the woman suffered “medically diagnosable and medically significant emotional distress,” in addition to repeated humiliation and embarrassment. It also offers insight on a timeline and alleged motivations behind the video making rounds.
Last week, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced charges against Rodney Leger of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in connection with the scandal. A county grand jury indicted Leger on three counts of nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images.
Leger is accused of obtaining a video of Harris having sex with a woman in the former chief of staff’s office, then sharing that video on multiple occasions in June 2022.
According to the lawsuit, Leger and Harris were both in an off-and-on romantic relationship with Constance Renee Vaughn, who now lives out of state. The lawsuit states Leger obtained the video from Vaughn, without Harris’ consent, sometime after it was taken.
Per the lawsuit, Vaughn disseminated the video to Leger for “purpose of “purposes of harassing, embarrassing, humiliating and attacking” the woman and Harris and “in furtherance of a plan and/or conspiracy concocted with Leger.”
Sometime in June 2022, Former State Representative Shamed Dogan received the video in an anonymous email while he was a member of the state legislature. Dogan, who represented part of St. Louis County at the state capitol, turned the video over to Councilman Mark Harder.
Harder noticed a St. Louis County government ID lanyard in the video and recognized it had been filmed in a county office. He notified the Clayton Police Department, who brought in the Missouri State Highway Patrol to assist with the investigation.
According to the lawsuit, Dogan also shared the video to multiple people, including some media members, in June 2022. At the time, Dogan was a Republican candidate in an upcoming election for St. Louis County Executive Sam Page.
The lawsuit contends that Dogan justified his actions by citing the Missouri Sunshine Law. However, it also claims that Dogan had no legitimate purpose in sharing the video and that it made the rounds “in his personal capacity and private citizen capacity and for purposes of his political campaign for St. Louis County Executive.”
The lawsuit further contends that Leger, Vaughn and Dogan all violated a Missouri statute over the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images and that all three acted “in bad faith, malevolent, malicious and ill-willed.”
The lawsuit states Leger committed “illegal and/or tortious acts” by sharing the video and that Harris was “negligent and tortious” in preventing others from having access to the video.
While the lawsuit was filed, no court dates or court appearances have been scheduled at this time.