Feds: Molalla tree nursery covered up employee rape

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A federal agency says it has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against a Molalla tree nursery which includes allegations that a woman there was repeatedly raped and threatened with death.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges Willamette Tree Wholesale with allowing sexual harassment of workers and retaliation against employees when they reported it.

The EEOC says a 38-year-old woman was taken to remote areas of the farm and raped by the company foreman several times.

Attorneys said the victim was threatened with termination and physically coerced with pruning shears. When she refused to be sexually assaulted yet again, she was fired, lawyers say.

It was the third such suit filed against a nursery.

"From California, where the fields were called 'field de calzon' (or field of panties) because so many supervisors raped women there, to Florida, where female farm workers call them the 'Green Motel' and throughout...