Martin J. Walsh, the former Boston mayor and US labor secretary, was subpoenaed this week to testify about a City Hall sexual harassment scandal that rocked his mayoral administration and prompted him to fire one of his Cabinet chiefs in 2017.
In the Suffolk Superior Court case, Hilani Morales alleged former health and human services chief Felix G. Arroyo, her department superior at the time, manipulated her into a sexual relationship and harassed and verbally abused her at work when she ended it. The matter is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 14.
Walsh’s subpoena was received by his longtime partner, Lorrie Higgins, Monday afternoon, according to an affidavit of service obtained by the Globe. The former mayor, like any potential witness who is subpoenaed, could seek a protective order to quash the subpoena.
Walsh, a Dorchester native who left City Hall in 2021 to become US labor secretary, could not be reached for comment. He left President Biden’s Cabinet earlier this year and is currently executive director of the NHL Players’ Association.
Others who have been subpoenaed in the case include Daniel Koh, who served as Walsh’s chief of staff at City Hall and in Washington, D.C., and Judge Mark Wolf, a longtime federal justice for the US District Court for Massachusetts, according to affidavits obtained by the Globe. (Koh left his role at the US Labor Department last year to become the deputy Cabinet secretary in the executive office of the president.)
In addition to Arroyo, the City of Boston is listed as a defendant in the case.
John F. Tocci, an attorney representing Morales, said Tuesday his client was looking forward to her day in court and “telling her story to a jury.”
“We’re looking forward to the trial,” Tocci said. “It’s been a long road.”
Attorney Isaac H. Peres, who is representing Arroyo, said, “The Court has already stated that the City’s investigation did not conclude that Felix did what has been alleged.”
“He is looking forward to his day in court where we are confident that he will be vindicated,” he said.
Arroyo, a former city councilor who ran for mayor in 2013, has denied all allegations of misconduct. He filed a counterclaim, saying Morales changed her story multiple times, made false allegations to investigators, and made false and defamatory statements about him.
He also filed a separate lawsuit against the city and former mayor Walsh, alleging the city violated his due process rights, made defamatory statements about him, and engaged in illegal employment practices and unlawful disclosure of confidential information. A handful of the counts were thrown out by the court, but at least two remain, including one alleging wrongful termination. That litigation is still ongoing, according to court records.
In the Morales case, she claims Arroyo inappropriately touched and groped her in his City Hall office and in his personal vehicle while she was chauffeuring him to evening events, according to court filings.
Morales, who was a policy director for health and human services from 2015 to 2017, said Arroyo used his position of power and his awareness of her “personal turmoil” — she was going through a divorce, until her husband needed chemotherapy for an aggressive cancer and the divorce proceedings were halted — to manipulate her into an “intermittent sexual relationship during 2016.”
“This relationship was marked by the extreme imbalance of power between a mid-level staffer and a Cabinet head,” Morales’s lawyers wrote in her complaint.
Though Morales terminated the relationship in early 2017, according to her lawsuit, Arroyo “continued to aggressively pursue Ms. Morales, pressuring her for sex, engaging in persistent sexual communication and threatening” her. She also alleged that Arroyo once grabbed her by the back of the neck and “squeezed it very hard.”
Arroyo has denied there was a physical attack. Peres, his attorney, referenced an earlier Superior Court judge’s decision that a city-commissioned investigation “did not conclude that a sexual relationship occurred between Morales and Arroyo, that Arroyo treated Morales disparately, or that Arroyo physically assaulted Morales.”
The sexual harassment scandal derailed Arroyo’s once-ascendant career in city politics. He hails from an influential political family. His father, Felix D. Arroyo, was a trailblazing Boston School Committee member and city councilor, and retired earlier this year as the Suffolk registrar of probate.
And his brother, Ricardo Arroyo, is in his second term as a city councilor. He recently admitted to a conflict of interest violation and paid a $3,000 penalty for his involvement in the Morales suit, according to the State Ethics Commission.
Ricardo Arroyo, a former public defender from Hyde Park, appeared as an attorney on behalf of his brother in the civil litigation prior to becoming a city councilor in January 2020, the commission said. After Arroyo was sworn in on the council, he did not withdraw from the case and continued to participate as his brother’s attorney, including in the deposition of a City of Boston employee.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.