St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry has sued Mayor Kaohly Her, alleging lewd sexual harassment and a retaliation campaign after he complained, claims her office says an independent probe rejected.
Fox News reported that St. Paul, Minnesota, Mayor Kaohly Her now faces a formal harassment complaint and a sprawling lawsuit from her own police chief, Axel Henry. The filing runs 73 pages and accuses Her of sexual comments, unwanted physical contact, and later efforts to sideline him.
Henry has led the St. Paul Police Department since 2022. Her took office as the city’s first Hmong and first female mayor after a Jan. 2, 2026, swearing-in at St. Catherine University’s O’Shaughnessy Auditorium. The clash between the city’s top elected official and its top cop has now spilled into open litigation.
Her office rejects the core claims. It points to an independent investigation and says the mayor will keep running the city while following the report’s recommendations. The city also says it will not discuss active litigation beyond those points.
The complaint, as described in the reporting, alleges Her made repeated inappropriate comments to city employees, including officers. Those include referring to herself as a “MILF” and making sexually suggestive remarks about Henry’s genitalia.
One incident is placed at a budget meeting. The suit claims Her put her hand on Henry’s upper thigh beneath a conference table. It also says she told him her marriage was in trouble, that they “needed to be friends” or “this was not going to work,” and that she needed a “close relationship.”
Those allegations sit at the center of a broader St. Paul police chief lawsuit against Mayor Kaohly Her that has drawn local and national attention. The filing treats the comments and contact as a pattern, not a one-off awkward moment.
Henry’s complaint further claims Her made frequent visits to the police department gym when he was there. She allegedly called him and other employees “beefy” and “simulated an orgasm” while working out near them.
At an awards ceremony, Henry wore a Mobile Field Force ribbon abbreviated “MFF.” According to the suit, Her asked what the letters meant, then replied, “Oh, I thought it said MILF so maybe I could get one.”
A December meeting at a cigar lounge raised the stakes further. Henry met Her and St. Paul Port Authority President Todd Hurley to discuss moving the downtown police station. The complaint alleges Her threatened that if she did not get her way, she would tell people the chief “grabbed her a**.”
That kind of alleged pressure, tying a personnel or facilities dispute to a false accusation, is exactly the sort of conduct workplace rules are supposed to stop. The suit presents it as leverage, not banter.
Similar tensions between mayors and police chiefs have surfaced in other cities, including a recent Seattle mayor’s clash with her police chief that ended in a costly severance fight. In St. Paul, the dispute is framed around harassment claims and alleged payback.
In February, Henry and a colleague used personal vacation time at a golf simulator in Woodbury, Minnesota. The lawsuit says Her showed up unexpectedly, told them she “had to come like this because you guys wouldn’t invite me,” and stayed about 20 minutes.
On its own, an awkward drop-in might read as overfamiliar. Stacked with the gym visits, the thigh-touch claim, and the alleged threat, the complaint treats it as another boundary crossed.
Readers following the sexual harassment probe into Mayor Kaohly Her will recognize the same basic arc: crude workplace conduct alleged by the chief, followed by a formal complaint process. The golf-simulator scene is one more data point in that timeline.
After Henry filed an internal complaint, the suit alleges Her and her administration “embarked on a campaign to retaliate against and discredit Chief Henry.” That campaign, per the filing, included cutting him out of decisions, withholding records he requested, and releasing a “sanitized” two-page summary of an independent investigation that downplayed her conduct.
Her office gives a different account. Fox Minneapolis carried the city’s line on the probe’s result.
"An independent investigation did not substantiate claims of sexual harassment or retaliation against any city employee,"
the mayor’s office said. The city added a second statement on leadership and litigation.
"The mayor will continue to lead Saint Paul and follow the recommendations of the report. Beyond that, the City of Saint Paul doesn’t comment on active litigation."
Reporting on the case has also noted that Her’s attempts at humor “fell short,” and that she has said she cooperated with the independent investigation. The lawsuit still treats the short public summary as incomplete and self-serving.
Coverage of the same dispute has tracked how a city probe and lawsuit over the mayor’s alleged crude conduct moved from internal process into public court papers. Henry’s filing puts the retaliation theory in writing: complain, then get frozen out.
Earlier this month, Her officially transferred her personal security detail and driver services from the St. Paul Police Department to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. The timing lands after the internal complaint and amid the broader fight described in the suit.
No injuries, arrests, or office closures are described in the available reporting. What is described is a broken working relationship at the top of city government, active litigation, and a mayor who says she will keep governing while an investigation summary she cites clears her of the harassment and retaliation claims.
Workplace blowups over crude language and power imbalances are not unique to city hall. A recent newsroom confrontation that cost a Detroit anchor her job showed how fast vulgar talk and hierarchy can explode when it is captured and challenged. In St. Paul, the venue is the mayor’s office and the police command staff.
Open questions remain. The public reporting does not name the court, case number, or exact filing date of the 73-page complaint. It does not fix calendar years for the December cigar-lounge meeting or the February golf-simulator visit. It does not identify who ran the independent investigation or publish the full findings beyond the city’s short statement. Those gaps matter for anyone trying to judge the complete record.
What is already on the table is stark enough. A sitting mayor is accused by her police chief of sexualized comments, physical contact, a threat to invent a groping story, and a post-complaint freeze-out. Her office answers with an investigation summary that, in its telling, found no substantiated harassment or retaliation.
Taxpayers and rank-and-file officers did not create this mess. They still have to live with a city hall and a police headquarters that no longer trust each other, and with leaders who should have kept professional lines clear long before a 73-page complaint made the failure public.
