CITY’S SEX HARASS SHAME
EXCLUSIVE: NYPD tops list of agencies on hook for $13M in settlements
IT'S NOT THE Police Department's Finest hour.
The city paid $12.8 million from 2014 to 2017 to settle claims of sex harassment or sex discrimination involving its employees – with the NYPD accounting for nearly a quarter of the settlements, records show. It coughed up $3.95 million to close 20 harassment claims involving police officers and brass.
The largest payout — $817,500 — went to Officer Maria Lampley, who said in a 2014 lawsuit that a lewd lieutenant, Alexander Rojas, tried several times to kiss her in his office and blocked her exit when she dodged his advances. Rojas denied the allegations. The NYPD wasn't the only agency with a high number of harassment claims.
The city agreed to 18 settlements involving Department of Education workers who said they were harassed, costing a total of $2.1 million, records show. Even the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation — the agency that looks into bad-behaving education workers — settled a harassment complaint, paying a former investigator $48,000 in 2017. Health and Hospitals, another large agency, had 15 settlements, costing $1.78 million.
The Daily News obtained the records of the settlements from the Law Department through a Freedom of Information Law request.
Nearly all of the settlements came about after accusers threaten to sue, or did so. The Law Department said it did not have settlement records in which city agencies reached deals with accusers before a notice of claim or lawsuit was filed.
Mayor de Blasio's office released data in April saying city agencies received a total of 1,312 sexual harassment complaints from July 2013 to the end of December 2017. The data showed 221 of the 1,312 were substantiated.
In May, de Blasio signed legislation that his office said would combat workplace sexual harassment through increased training and reporting. The laws would also bolster employee protections against harassment, his office said.
In all, the city settled 90 cases after
victims showed that they endured ongoing harassment, and retaliation when they complained. Several of the complains revealed the city dragged its feet in looking into harassment claims. And, even when claims were substantiated, some harassers were allowed to keep their jobs.
In one case, a highway repairer for the Department of Transportation had to wait more than a year before her agency's equal employment opportunity office substantiated her complaints about two supervisors trying to pressure her and other female employees into sex.
In a federal lawsuit filed last August, the highway repairer said Denochy Cowan — her boss who hired her in 2015 — sent her sexual texts, groped her buttocks and lorded his supervisory role over her in an attempt to get her to sleep with him. Cowan resigned after the city settled with the woman for $250,000 in December. He denied the allegations in a response to the lawsuit.
However, another supervisor who was accused of yanking the female worker's ponytail and creepily asking her to be one of his wives still works for the DOT, records show. That supervisor also denied the allegations.
The woman, who also still works for the DOT, said in her lawsuit that Cowan transferred her from a Bronx work site to a Brooklyn location after she refused his advances for months. After the transfer, she summoned the courage to file an equal opportunity complaint. But when word of an investigation got out, her co-workers shamed her, calling her the “EEO girl.”
“Coming forward and bringing these charges of sexual harassment, it's very difficult,” the woman's lawyer, Christina Giorgio, said.
“A woman comes forward and they get branded. They called her the ‘EEO girl.' They get shunned.”
In another settlement, the city paid $127,000 in August 2017 to an undercover detective in the Internal Affairs Bureau. The officer — who filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court in 2016 — said a supervisor, Sgt. Stefanie Brinkley, badgered her about her sexual identity during a meeting with her and other detectives.
“I am only asking what everyone in the room wants to know and no one has the balls to ask,” Brinkley said to the undercover cop, according to the lawsuit.
Brinkley also told the undercover detective that “sex must be really painful” for her in response to the detective confiding that she was unable to have children.
The undercover detective made an equal opportunity complaint in March 2015. The investigation concluded in July 2016 with the office substantiating the detective's complaint. After the complaint was filed, Brinkley tried to undermine the detective's credibility, the lawsuit says. Brinkley lied about the detective cursing at her and being insubordinate, according to the suit.
Brinkley denied the allegations in a response to the lawsuit.
The sergeant remains on the job and earned $177,000 in 2017. Records show Brinkley received a promotion in July 2017, a year after the equal employment office substantiated the charges.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment about what disciplinary charges Brinkley might face. But the department said it doesn't tolerate harassment.
“Sexual harassment is prohibited by federal, state and city laws as well as department policies, and the NYPD takes seriously all accusations of this type of unacceptable behavior,” said Phillip Walzak, the department's deputy commissioner of public information. “In January, Commissioner (James) O'Neill launched the Office of Equity and Inclusion to more effectively promote fairness within the department and equal employment opportunity policies. The NYPD thoroughly investigates all complaints it receives, and offers several reporting options for NYPD employees, including anonymous reporting.”
The city Law Department said sexual harassment protocols are being overhauled to ensure that all complaints are investigated and addressed in a timely fashion. The department also said it planned to share its findings on harassment lawsuits with city agencies.
“While there is no bar on the pursuit of discipline while litigation is pending, we're instituting a more formal process where city agencies will be made aware of facts that come to light during litigation that may influence the agency's disciplinary process,” Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci said.