Mayor Paul Winfield’s former chief of staff has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Vicksburg charging him with sexual harassment.

Kenya Burks says in the suit that she and the mayor had a consensual sexual relationship and that nearly $10,000 in back overtime pay in 2011 was an attempt by Winfield to continue that relationship.

The suit, filed in Jackson by Jackson attorney Louis H. Watson Jr., says Burks is entitled to damages under federal law because she was “subjected to unlawful sexual harassment, sex discrimination, sexually hostile environment in the workplace, and retaliation.”