Say DA hopeful made CCRB hell
A candidate for Queens District Attorney had a tumultuous 23month tenure at the Civilian Complaint Review Board that forced at least two former employees into therapy.
The former female senior staffers said Mina Malik created an atmosphere of paranoia and hostility within the police watchdog agency. Their comments come two months after the city agreed to pay $30,000 to Winsome Thelwell, a current CCRB employee who said in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit that Malik had unfairly passed her over for a promotion in 2015 to chief of investigations. The payout has not been previously been reported.
“Mina created a situation where if you didn’t tell her something you’d be in trouble,” one source said. “Everyone at the office was scared. She just was so vindictive.”
Malik has touted her 15 years of experience as an assistant district attorney in Queens, work for former Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson and role as executive director of the CCRB until November 2016. The race could result in a major shift in criminal justice in Queens, where outgoing District Attorney Richard Brown has taken a tough approach to crimes like marijuana possession and turnstile-jumping.
Malik said through a campaign spokeswoman that criticism comes with the territory when trying to reform entrenched bureaucracies.
“As a woman of color seeking to bring reform into the maledominated criminal justice sphere, I’ve always approached my work prepared for resistance and opposition, which most often happens internally. I expect that there will be pushback against essential change when I am elected Queens District Attorney, but that is human nature and to be expected.”
Malik’s work at the CCRB handling complaints about police officers was marked by a power struggle with then Chairman Richard Emery that spilled into court.
Emery, who declined comment, overhauled the workflow of the agency to expedite handling of cases, sources said. He allowed CCRB investigators to communicate directly with board members — a move that Malik sought to undo by ordering that she or other supervisors be looped in on many communications, sources said.
“She wanted to know everything. She wanted to be copied,” a source said.
Malik also disciplined an investigator who answered to her but asked Emery for a reference, a source said. In another episode she berated three senior staffers for not informing her that press were gathered outside the CCRB office, a source said.
“You don’t have to be nasty, cruel or narcissistic to be a reformer. Being a reformer is not an excuse to abuse staff,” a source said.
One of the former staffers said she developed severe stress-related illnesses and saw a psychotherapist during Malik’s tenure. The other described PTSD-like symptoms that required extensive therapy.