Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994                   TAG: 9411300045
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

TIFFANY TO PAY $365,000 IN SEX HARASSMENT CASE

A second manager told the woman she was ``too aggressive to be a female'' and mocked her for being Jewish, the state Human Rights Division decided.

Tiffany was ordered to pay Paula Smith, the former head of the estate jewelry department, $65,000 in back pay and interest and $300,000 for mental anguish. The emotional-damages award is the largest the division has ever given in a sexual-harassment case, said Lawrence Wizman, an agency spokesman.

The store plans to appeal, saying its defense was hampered by a 10-year delay since the harassment occurred and by the deaths of the two male managers Smith claimed harassed her.

At a hearing, Smith said her immediate superior, Raymond Potterat, demeaned her and boasted of his sexual prowess.

Potterat also told another female employee of plans to set up a showroom with ``a naked woman to model jewelry and a whore for the men to play with,'' according to testimony.

The purported showroom also would ``have a bar with a black bartender for people who like to have blacks serve them and a white bartender for those who don't like to have blacks near them,'' the woman testified.

Potterat, later fired, and the second manager, Keith Hall, both had died by the time hearings were held last year.

Smith, a gemologist, complained to Tiffany before she was fired in December 1983, said her lawyer, Lawrence Sandak. She has not worked since and testified that Tiffany had destroyed her career. She filed a formal complaint against the company in spring 1984.