BY ACEE AGOYO | INDIANZ
The chief executive officer of the National Congress of American Indians lost his job over his handling of a sexual harassment investigation, according to documents filed in court.
Dante Desiderio, who was on the job for just a year, wasn’t the target of investigation, according to a complaint he filed in the Washington, D.C. Instead, it was the non-Indian attorney he hired as NCAI’s general counsel who was accused of making a comment of a sexual nature to a younger woman employee.
Then-General Counsel Max Muller suggested becoming “friends with benefits” to an employee during her first visit to NCAI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to Desiderio.
Muller is an experienced lawyer who, on the speaking circuit, has a keynote titled, “Office Romance – The Road From Attraction to Litigation.” He says his experience includes law relating to discrimination, harassment (including sexual harassment), FMLA, ADA, FLSA, COBRA, recruitment and onboarding, discipline and discharge, unemployment, workers’ compensation, behavior-based interviewing and more workplace specialties.
The incident marks the second time in four years in which NCAI’s highest-ranking legal official was investigated for sexual harassment-related complaints.
In 2018, non-Indian attorney John Dossett was ousted after Indianz.Com reported on allegations that eventually cost him a role he held at the organization for two decades. It marks the second time in three years in which the top executive at the largest inter-tribal organization in the United States has been embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal.
In 2019, Jackie Pata, a citizen of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes based in Southeast Alaska, departed NCAI following a four-month suspension connected to her handling of the Dossett investigation.
