DENVER (LN) — A New Mexico federal judge on Thursday threw out gender-discrimination claims brought by Gina Styring, a former Carlsbad Police Department dispatcher who alleged the city fired her because she is a woman, ruling that Styring failed to produce evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that the city's stated reasons for her termination were cover for sex discrimination.
Styring was fired in early 2025 after she twice refused to submit to a mandatory polygraph examination during an internal affairs investigation into allegations that she and a male officer, Omar Lopez, had sex in a second-floor CPD bathroom. Chief Jessie Rodriguez recommended her termination on March 3, 2025, citing her refusal to cooperate with the investigation and multiple policy violations. City Administrator Wendy Austin affirmed that recommendation after a pre-determination hearing at which Styring again declined the polygraph and, for the first time, disclosed an off-duty meeting with Lopez at a local gym.
Austin determined that the belated disclosure was disingenuous and, together with Styring's polygraph refusal, concluded it suggested Styring was not credible.
Styring sued under Title VII and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, arguing the investigation was a pretext for gender discrimination. The city conceded for purposes of summary judgment that she could establish a prima facie case, shifting the fight entirely to pretext.
The court held that Styring's most pointed argument — that Dispatch Commander Katey Prell launched the initial informal investigation in retaliation for critical comments Styring made about Prell at a December 2024 union meeting — actually cut against her Title VII claim. Styring's own counsel acknowledged at the May 1 oral argument that the evidence did not suggest Prell was motivated by gender discrimination. Because evidence supporting only a retaliatory motive, without more, cannot sustain a sex-discrimination claim, the court concluded that line of argument was a dead end.
The court was equally unpersuaded by Styring's attack on the internal affairs investigation itself. She argued that Lieutenant Adrian Rivera mischaracterized a witness's statement in a letter to the polygraph examiner, that he failed to adequately probe witness motives, and that the investigation was designed to reach a predetermined result. The court held that those criticisms amounted to disagreement with Rivera's judgment, not evidence of gender bias — particularly because both Styring and Lopez received the same mandatory polygraph directive and Rivera's report found both had been deceitful.
Styring's comparator evidence fared no better. She identified seven male CPD employees she said were treated more leniently after comparable misconduct, including former Chief Shane Skinner, who faced affair rumors but retired specifically to avoid an investigation that was then discontinued, and Officer Steve Munroe, who was investigated on multiple serious accusations — including allegations that he searched for underage pornography, placed a hidden camera in a young woman's bedroom, and sent text messages to a 12-year-old girl — but whose charges were found unfounded and who remained employed at CPD as of August 2025. The court held that most of those comparators were disciplined — or not — under a different police chief and a different city administrator, which it said greatly diminishes the evidentiary value of the comparison. Lopez, the court concluded, was the most apt comparator, and the undisputed record showed Rodriguez would have terminated him as well had he not resigned.
Having dismissed the federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Styring's New Mexico Human Rights Act and New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act claims, remanding them to the Fifth Judicial District Court in Eddy County.