California taxpayers will pay $350,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former state employee who alleged that Treasurer Fiona Ma, who is now running for lieutenant governor, sexually harassed her.

The former employee, Judith Blackwell, worked under Ma as the executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee. Blackwell filed the lawsuit in 2021 in Sacramento County Superior Court after she was fired.

The complaint alleged that Ma offered to let Blackwell stay in hotel rooms, and later at an Airbnb, in Sacramento with Ma and her chief of staff to avoid an hourlong commute home after dark. The lawsuit said that Ma repeatedly exposed her “bare rear end” to Blackwell in the hotel room, and once crawled into Blackwell’s bed at the Airbnb while she was sleeping.