Cop: She grabbed my privates
A BODYBUILDING cop claims his former boss leered at his chiseled physique — and grabbed his crotch when they were alone in an office, according to an exclusive interview and discrimination complaint.
NYPD Officer Risel Martinez filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint on Oct. 13 alleging he was touched inappropriately and subject to comments about his appearance while assigned to the department’s gun range ballistic vest unit.
Martinez told the employment commission that the harassment, which occurred in January, was at the hands of his then-supervisor, Sgt. Laverne Wilson-Valis.
He also reported the allegations to the NYPD’s Equal Employment Opportunity office on Feb. 7. Martinez claims he wasn’t transferred out until 30 days after he made the complaint against Wilson-Valis.
Elaborating on his complaint, Martinez alleges things “started to get a little weird” shortly after his transfer to the unit in May 2016.
“So we’d be there and then she’d make comments like, ‘Wow, Martinez, you’re getting bigger, you’re getting stronger,’ and I’d be like, OK, thank you?” the five-year NYPD veteran told the Daily News.
On Jan. 31, Martinez was moving bulletproof vests around a trailer when Wilson-Valis came in, the complaint says.
In both an interview and the filing, Martinez, 27, maintains that Wilson-Valis walked up to him and looked at a bodybuilding magazine that happened to be in the trailer.
Wilson-Valis allegedly asked him if the magazine was his, Martinez said.
When his co-workers left the trailer, Martinez says his boss molested him.
“Now she puts her hand on my groin area, and then she places her hand right above my butt,” said Martinez, who is represented by lawyer Peter Brill
“She pushes me back, looks at my penis — like, directly at my penis — and then pushes me forward and looks at my butt.
Another police officer walked into the trailer and saw what happened, Martinez said.
“And when I look at her, she just steps back, puts her hands up and giggles. I was just so confused.”
The NYPD declined to comment on the complaint and said Wilson-Valis, 50, is declining to be interviewed for the story.
“I felt extremely humiliated. It was incredibly demeaning and dehumanizing,” Martinez reflected.
An Aug. 11 NYPD Equal Employment Opportunity office letter obtained by The News reads, “The allegation that Sergeant SA Wilson-Valis subjected you to sexually harassing conduct and that she lacked professionalism and respect in her daily interactions with members of service assigned to the Vest Unit was deemed SUBSTANTIATED.”
The office found the claim she discriminated because of gender, however, was “UNSUBSTANTIATED.”
Martinez said he’s now taking his complaint to the EEOC because Wilson-Valis was only ordered to go to a professionalism seminar following the investigation
Martinez was stripped of his gun and shield in May 2016 after video surfaced of him pulling his weapon on people recording him in a Harlem building — and then punching one of them in the face.
Martinez is now back on full duty and assigned to the 73rd Precinct in Brooklyn.