WRENTHAM - A former clerical worker in Wrentham District Court is going public in her fight against the state Trial Court and a state anti-discrimination board which she says covered up her allegations of harassment by a top Wrentham court official.

Patricia Lubold, a former Wrentham resident who now lives on Cape Cod, says she was sexually harassed by Wrentham District Court Assistant Clerk Magistrate A. Ross Pini when she worked at the court from 1984 to 1991.

The allegations were ultimately dismissed after a 1994 internal investigation by the state Trial Court administration and again in 2005 when the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed her complaint.

But Lubold, 48, who now works at Orleans District Court, says she is a victim of justice denied. She has appealed the 2005 MCAD ruling and is waiting for a decision.

"It's been a long, long process. The entire justice system that should have protected me and helped me completely failed. It's all who you know - not what you know," Lubold said Tuesday in a telephone interview. Her story begins in Wrentham District Court, where Lubold alleges she was the victim of unwanted sexual advances by Pini. There were also anonymously written poems sent to her house and hang-up phone calls.

A state police handwriting expert later found it "was more probable than not" that Pini, who was then the second assistant clerk magistrate, wrote the poems.

Pini, a North Attleboro resident, was not at work Tuesday. He could not be reached through a relative for comment Tuesday, and has not responded to other media outlets regarding Lubold's allegations against him.

Joan Kenney, a spokeswoman for the state courts, said she could not comment on Lubold's allegations because state Trial Court personnel matters are confidential and because of the pending MCAD case.

Lubold, the mother of two children and a foster son who once dreamed of becoming a probation officer, left her clerical job in 1991 in a voluntary layoff. She met with Pini a year later to discuss getting her job back, but was not rehired.

She alleges Pini requested sex in return for getting her job back. He denied making the comments and in 1994 Lubold filed a complaint with the state Trial Court against him. The complaint was dismissed after an internal investigation.

Lubold and her family moved to Sandwich in 1998 where she resumed her career in the juvenile division of the Barnstable District Court. While working there, she was contacted by a state trooper doing a background check on Pini, who was nominated by then Gov. Paul Cellucci for the clerk magistrate's job.

Pini's name was later withdrawn and he is now the first assistant clerk magistrate at the Wrentham court.

About the same time, Lubold said she began getting hang-up phone calls at the juvenile court. Lubold says she asked the court to place a tap on the telephone line, which was done only after initial resistance. By then, she was transferred to Orleans District Court.

Lubold said she found herself the subject of a harassment claim for faxing the court's sexual harassment policy to Pini using the office fax machine in what she said was an attempt to get Pini to call her. She was also was given written reprimands. The harassment claim against her was later dropped and reprimand letters were removed from her personnel file.

Lubold filed a complaint with MCAD alleging the hang-up phone calls and reprimands at work constituted sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation.

In 2000, the commission initially found probable cause and a public hearing was scheduled. But five years later, her complaint was dismissed.

Lubold said MCAD Commissioner Walter Sullivan should have recused himself from hearing the case because he has relatives who work in the court system. They include an uncle who is a retired clerk magistrate in Middlesex Superior Court, a brother who is a clerk magistrate in Middlesex County and two cousins who work in the court system.

None of the relatives work in Wrentham or Barnstable.

Lubold said she has been told that Sullivan will also be sitting in on her appeal, which she said is a conflict for the same reasons. Sullivan did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Lubold, who is waiting for a decision on her appeal, says she is taking her case public now because "I couldn't get justice anywhere else."

"I didn't want to go public because it is an embarrassing thing to talk about. I don't want to relive it," Lubold said.

DAVID LINTON can be reached at 508-236-0338 or at dlinton@thesunchronicle.com.