Blaz guard claims bias, wants $7M

A detective on Mayor de Blasio’s security detail slapped the city with a $7 million lawsuit Friday, claiming his bosses mistreated him because he is Muslim.

Abdelim (Abe) Azab, a 17year NYPD veteran making more than $160,000 a year, claims he was repeatedly passed over for promotion and was called “useless” and a “misfit” by bosses.

He blames the commander of the mayor’s security detail, Howard Redmond, and intelligence bureau chief Thomas Galati for his treatment. His lawsuit also names Lt. Karl Pfeffer and Sgt. Paul Briscoe.

After Azab joined the NYPD in 2001, he worked undercover for seven years in the NYPD”s controversial Demographics Unit, which surveilled people in Muslim communities. He was promoted to detective in 2003, and then detective second grade in 2008. He has not been promoted further since then.

Azab claims he was stationed at City Hall to “isolate him from the other detectives.” In 2017, he overheard Briscoe tell a lieutenant, “I’ll send one of the misfits.” Briscoe then sent Azab.

On several occasions, Azab was assigned to accompany the mayor on a detail — and then had that assignment taken away, the lawsuit claims. Sometimes, his suit says, Azab was removed from one of the mayor’s vehicles and replaced by other detectives.

Azab was barred from a trip with de Blasio to Israel even though he is the only Arabic speaker in the unit.

When he complained, Redmond told him he was “too intimidating to people.”

“It was an accumulation over years of not being promoted,” said his lawyer Marshall Bellovin.

“According to the complaint in the lawsuit filed today, he was marginalized and assigned tasks that did not afford him the opportunity to be visible that would put him in a better position to be promoted.”

Azab was also deprived access to special training programs with the FBI, the State Department and Homeland Security that were offered to non-Muslim detectives.

Azab remains with the security detail.