PORTLAND — A former employee at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard lowered her head and cried before rushing out of a courtroom following a jury verdict exonerating the Navy of her sexual harassment claims.

Workers testified during the trial in federal court that accusations by Barbara Voisine, 44, were lies and that none of them amounted to sexual harassment.

The Navy’s attorney told the jury the charges were the result of Voisine’s unstable mental condition, caused in part by abuse at the hands of her husband, who committed suicide in 1992, and depression from the death of her father in 1990.

“I don’t view it as a victory,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Collins said after Wednesday’s verdict. “The circumstances that led Mrs. Voisine to take action against the Navy were very unfortunate.”

Her attorney, Cynthia Dill, said only that “it’s been an honor to represent Barbara Voisine.”

The jury deliberated for more than six hours.

Voisine testified that the harassment started when she rejected the advances of some male co-workers following her husband’s suicide. She worked as a sheet metal worker in a shop with 49 men.

Voisine said co-workers commented on her breasts and called her a “stupid … woman.”

She said her spider plants were poisoned with chemicals from the shop. A sawed-off broom handle was repeatedly propped up on her work bench, she said.

She filed a complaint with the shipyard in January 1995, after finding what she thought to be semen on the toilet in the woman’s bathroom.

She said she quit after no action was taken on her complaints. She now works for a company that hauls boats in York County.

Collins repeatedly raised doubts about her claims. Several witnesses testified that the substance on the toilet seat was soap, not semen.

Collins also showed the shipyard responded appropriately to her claims.

Voisine admitted that supervisors talked to the male worker who called her stupid and that she never had trouble with him again.

Patrick Crowley, a supervisor who oversaw 2,000 employees, testified that he and other shipyard supervisors take sexual harassment extremely seriously.

He said Voisine’s complaints were largely motivated by her personal problems.

During one meeting about a sexual harassment complaint, Voisine “seemed to ramble on about nothing that was really coherent to me,” said Crowley, who is now retired from the shipyard. “She was not emotionally stable at that point in my eyes.”