ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A lawsuit filed Wednesday shed new light on how a sex tape involving the former St. Louis County Executive's Chief of Staff circulated in St. Louis County government last year and alleges there could be more victims.
The woman in a video filed the lawsuit, alleging she was recorded without her consent by Calvin Harris, the former chief of staff for St. Louis County Executive Sam Page. In the lawsuit, she alleged that Rodney Leger, who was criminally charged in the case last week, conspired with the mother of Harris' child to get the video into the hands of Page's political opponents.
The woman listed only as Jane Doe is now suing Harris, the mother of Harris’ child, Constance Renee Vaughn, Vaughn's boyfriend Rodney Leger, and Page’s political foe, former state Representative Shamed Dogan.
The lawsuit claims there was a “meeting of the minds” between Vaughn and Leger to disseminate the video without the consent of Harris and the alleged victim, “for purposes of harassing, embarrassing, humiliating, and attacking plaintiff and Harris.”
“Leger, working in conjunction with others, namely Vaughn, concocted a plan to humiliate, harass, embarrass, and cause emotional distress to Calvin Harris and Plaintiff,” according to the suit.
The woman's attorney, Grant Boyd, sent 5 On Your Side a statement, which read: "As promised, we intend to hold people accountable for their actions. We are glad that more facts of what happened and who people are is finally coming to light after the tireless work of law enforcement and prosecutors. We will try to continue to gather information as we force those involved to answer questions for themselves and answer for their conduct."
Dogan has not yet responded to a phone call seeking comment.
In a statement, Harris' lawyer Travis Noble said, "I'm not aware of any allegations that Mr. Harris surreptitiously recorded other women or lied to investigators."
In June 2022, Leger contacted Dogan and sent the video to Dogan along with “numerous other persons,” according to the lawsuit.
At the time, Dogan was seeking the Republican nomination to run against Page.
“After receiving the video in June 2022, Dogan then began disseminating the video to numerous persons for purposes of attacking, embarrassing, harassing, humiliating and causing emotional distress to Harris and plaintiff,” according to the suit. “Dogan then began disseminating the video to the media for purposes of attacking, embarrassing, harassing, humiliating and causing emotional distress to Harris and plaintiff.”
5 On Your Side obtained the video via a Sunshine request to Dogan’s office. He was a representative for the 98th District in St. Louis.
“Dogan disseminated the video in his personal capacity and private citizen capacity and for purposes of his political campaign for St. Louis County executive,” according to the lawsuit. “Despite an attempt to hide behind his official capacity, Dogan was not truly acting in his official capacity as he had no legitimate official purpose in the matter.”
The lawsuit also alleged Harris had "a prior history of surreptitiously videotaping women during sexual acts without their knowledge and without their consent to such recordings."
"Upon being confronted by law enforcement about the video of the sexual act involving plaintiff, Harris lied to investigators about the identity of plaintiff in an effort to conceal his culpability and conduct," the lawsuit said.
Leger, a 51-year-old man from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, was charged with three counts of nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images, according to court documents.
Leger, “while acting with another, intentionally disseminated an image with the intent to harass, threaten, or coerce Harris or [the woman in the video],” and he “obtained the image under circumstances in which a reasonable person would know or understand the image was to remain private, and knew or should have known that Harris or (the woman in the video) did not consent to distribution,” according to the documents filed May 24.
The grand jury indictment remained under seal until last week, when Leger turned himself in to authorities, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation, who also confirm the relationship between Leger and the mother of Harris’ child.
Those sources also confirm the investigation took close to a year because it was largely based on search warrants served on social media companies to trace how the images were disseminated. It then took months for those companies to respond with the information. Once the information came back to authorities, the volume of records took months to review for evidence, according to sources.
