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A former Chico\u2019s FAS employee has come forward with a previously undisclosed account of his interactions with Kevin Anderson, detailing a pattern of unwanted attention that continued for months while they both worked at the company\u2019s Fort Myers headquarters a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, claimed Anderson repeatedly sought him out at work, stopped him in the hallways, entered his workspace without invitation, and repeatedly invited him to lunch or coffee off campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was a gay man in my early 20s, he was a straight man 30 years older than me, and I remember thinking, Why is this guy so interested in me? Why does he keep stopping me or coming into my cube?\u201d<\/em> the man wrote in an emailed account. \u201c\u2026 I have plenty of older friends; this didn\u2019t feel to me like an older coworker trying to make a friend. It felt forward and like he was repeatedly trying to create a personal relationship that I wasn\u2019t reciprocating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former employee, whose identity and former employment at Chico\u2019s was verified by the Lighthouse, made it clear that Anderson, a married Republican who left Chico\u2019s in 2019, never propositioned him for sex. Rather, he describes persistent personal attention over the course of more than a year beginning in 2016 that he did not welcome and made him uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI remember him asking if I had a girlfriend. I dodged the question, and somehow the conversation shifted toward his support of gay people in general,\u201d said the man. \u201cI remember him saying something to the effect of, \u2018It\u2019s okay if you are, I don\u2019t have any issue with that.\u2019 I don\u2019t remember exactly how he got from the girlfriend question to that point, but I remember feeling like he was trying to get me to tell him I was gay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot of my conversations with him were like this,\u201d he continued. \u201cHe\u2019d bring up something random, personal or kind of charged and somehow twist the conversation into a place that made me uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He wrote that it got so bad he changed his work routine to avoid Anderson and told several co-workers and managers about it. Two Chico\u2019s employees, one of whom continues to work at the women\u2019s apparel company in a management role, confirmed the man told them about Anderson\u2019s behavior prior to Lighthouse reporting about two younger men who alleged unwanted sexual attention (and worse) from the mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those two men \u2014 23-year-old Kagan Vann and 18-year-old Dominic Hendricks \u2014 directly confronted Anderson with their allegations at Monday\u2019s city council meeting. Numerous speakers demanded the mayor\u2019s resignation. Anderson denied the allegations and said he would continue leading the city before abruptly adjourning the meeting with no discussion among the council. The mayor did not respond to a detailed text message for comment from the Lighthouse regarding the former Chico\u2019s employee\u2019s accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former employee wrote that he first learned of the allegations from coworkers who read about it in the Lighthouse. He described a feeling of solidarity with the other two men, especially after watching them speak at the city council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was hard to watch and I feel terrible for both of them,\u201d wrote the man, who left Chico\u2019s in 2020. \u201cYou should be able to trust your public officials. And I have a lot of respect for them being willing to stand up there publicly and talk about what happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted that Anderson seemed very determined in all three settings to establish relationships that were unwanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know how persistent he could be with someone who wasn\u2019t really reciprocating,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIn my case, I could keep saying no and eventually get away from it. But he wasn\u2019t the mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Anderson did become mayor in 2020, he and two separate coworkers (a message for comment to one of them went unreturned) communicated about it at the time in texts the man supplied to the Lighthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI spit out my drink,\u201d one wrote about the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOMG. Maybe you should have went on that \u2018date\u2019! Lol,\u201d another coworker wrote to the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaybe I should let wink news know what a creep he was lol,\u201d answered the man in the exchange that predates the current allegations by six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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