Chicago- A federal jury awarded $275,000 in damages Tuesday night to a former waitress at a Hooters restaurant in Chicago who alleged she had been sexually harassed by managers and had her privacy invaded by way of a peephole in a dressing room.

The eight-person jury, evenly split between men and women, deliberated about 4 1/2 hours before reaching its verdict in favor of Joanna Ciesielski, 26.

Lawyers for Hooters asked U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve to throw out the jury’s punitive damage award of $250,000 against upper management, saying there was no evidence it took part in any sexual harassment. The jury also awarded $25,000 in compensatory damages.

But Ciesielski’s lawyer, John De Rose, contended the punitive damages covered several lower-level managers who had sexually harassed his client at the Hooters of O’Hare, 8225 W. Higgins Rd.

De Rose said the jury knew exactly what it was doing, noting jury awards in federal sexual-harassment suits can’t exceed a $300,000 cap.

St. Eve took the matter under advisement.

“My mom and dad always told me, `The truth will set you free,'” Ciesielski told reporters following the verdict. “It’s totally true.”

In closing arguments earlier Tuesday, Hooters attorney Raymond Pesavento made much of the fact that within a week of discovering the peephole in 2001, Ciesielski and another waitress contacted a lawyer and took photos of the peephole.

“Why were they so rushed to go to a lawyer?” Pesavento asked jurors. “We’re here for one reason: because Miss Ciesielski had an agenda.”

But De Rose maintained Ciesielski had quickly consulted an attorney at the urging of her Polish immigrant father.

Ciesielski testified last week at the trial that she heard laughter as she undressed alone in a changing room at the restaurant in April 2001. With each article of clothing she removed, Ciesielski said the laughter grew.

“I felt something was wrong,” she said.

A break room for employees was located in an adjoining room.

By the next week, after the peephole had been discovered, a female co-worker complained to managers about the invasion of privacy, according to De Rose.

One assistant manager who had just returned from sexual-harassment training allegedly remarked to Ciesielski, “Does it look like it changed me?”

Ciesielski, who worked at the restaurant while attending college, also testified that a number of assistant managers touched her inappropriately and asked her out on dates.

The trial gained interest in part because the waitresses’ uniform–tight orange shorts and scooped-neck tank tops–and the chain’s name have brought the restaurant some notoriety over the last two decades. The restaurant refers to its attractive, all-female wait staff as “Hooters girls.”

According to testimony at the trial, a Hooters internal summary of its waitress job included the following: “The essence of the job is based on female sex appeal.”

In closing arguments, De Rose mocked Hooters’ claim that it takes sexual-harassment allegations seriously. “Hogwash,” he told jurors.

De Rose accused Hooters of a “conspiracy of silence,” saying its restaurant managers had all been trained not to keep references to sexual harassment complaints in writing.

Hooters’ own sensitivity training contended a common myth of sexual harassment was that accusers were only out for money. Yet Pesavento leveled that very allegation against Ciesielski.

Citing testimony that the peepholes reappeared over several months, Pesavento suggested that Ciesielski had poked the holes in the wall herself to further her claims of harassment.

Pesavento also contended it was physically impossible for anyone to see through the peepholes because the walls that divided the changing room from a break room were separated by a 4 1/2-inch stud.

Pesavento also questioned Ciesielski’s honesty, pointing out her admissions that she concealed tip income from her waitress job on her tax returns. Referring to records from Ciesielski’s therapy sessions, he called her an “emotionally unstable, disturbed young lady.”