Surprise employee's firing was based on Web-site browsing

Erin Zlomek
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 24, 2007 07:36 AM

Surprise officials said this week that a former city employee who had a prior career in the sex entertainment industry was fired for browsing inappropriate Web sites at work.

However, the employee, former Surprise Tennis and Racquet Complex coordinator Geoff Mena, denies the accusation and said the city started a "deliberate witch hunt" against him after a concerned resident sent an anonymous letter to Mena's boss.

Mena signed a release last week allowing city officials to disclose the reason for his termination.

The Buckeye resident has 12 years of tennis experience and a prior career designing Web sites, some of which had sexual content. Mena also hosted an adult radio show and on occasion went before the camera in sex videos.

Mena, who is an acquaintance of Surprise Tennis and Racquet Complex director John Austin, told his bosses about his previous career before he was hired.

However, Mena was fired about a month into the job after a letter dated Aug. 30 and signed a "concerned parent and Surprise resident" stated: "My friend and I were talking to the tennis pro, Geoff Mena, about lessons, tournaments, etc. for our families. Once we returned home, we decided to 'Google' his name to check his teaching credentials. It was at this time that we discovered that he also is involved in the adult entertainment industry. As a former Marine, I am certainly not a prude, but, after some discussion, Mr. Mena's other career made us wary of him teaching our wives, daughters and their teenage friends."

Mena believed he was fired because of the letter. However, the city said Mena's inappropriate Web browsing violated the city's employee guideliness and was the reason for his termination.

The city's Web filter identified eight Web addresses classified as "adult/sexually explicit" that Mena had browsed for a total of nine minutes.

None of the sites actually featured sexual content, but nearly all featured Web design code that was ultimately linked to a domain name that had content sexual in nature.

Four of the addresses were accessed by Mena on Aug. 23. Mena said he was chatting with a city technical-assistance employee about Web design, and brought up his portfolio Web site that featured non-sexual examples from his previous career as a Web designer.

The other four addresses were accessed on Sept. 9, a day after the anonymous letter complaining about Mena arrived. That time, Mena said, he and his boss put his name into a Web search engine to see what kind of content might have popped up. Mena said they browsed various addresses together, but nothing sexual was featured on them.

Mena believes the anonymous letter prompted city officials to find a reason to fire him, and that they used the Web sites he visited as a reason, even though they didn't actually feature sexual content.

"Due to the possibility of litigation, we won't have any further public comment," city spokesman Ken Lynch said in an e-mail to The Republic.

City spokeswoman Diane Arthur also said the six-month period after a city employee is hired is considered a probationary period, and the city has the right to terminate that employee at any time during the period without reason.

Mena said he is contemplating legal action as a result of the firing, telling The Republic previously, "It demonizes me in a way. I'm not a criminal, I'm not a sex offender."