Con Ed ax unfair: suit
A CON ED human resources employee says she was wrongfully fired for approving the hire of a former police officer involved in the infamous Abner Louima brutality case.
In papers filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, Kimberly Allen-Foster said she cleared Charles Schwarz’s hiring as a Con Ed mechanic in November 2014 because he had done his time.
A “refusal to hire Mr. Schwarz based on his criminal history would have violated the law,” her court filing said.
But when Con Ed brass found out a month later, Allen-Foster was told she had put the “company at risk” and canned, she said in her lawsuit against the utility.
Schwarz was one of five cops charged in connection with the 1997 attack on the Haitian immigrant, who was sodomized with a broomstick handle in the bathroom of Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct.
Schwarz was convicted of violating Louima’s rights by taking part in the attack, but the conviction was overturned. He was later convicted of lying about his actions, and sentenced to five years in prison.
He lost his job as a result, and applied at Con Ed.
Allen-Foster said she reviewed Schwarz’s application for employment, which included a disclosure of his conviction.
Schwarz “was a qualified candidate” and his conviction had no bearing on his ability to perform the job, her suit said. Word got out about his past after he started at the utility’s East River facility. He was fired, and Con Ed investigated his hiring, the suit says.
Allen-Foster told her bosses she hired him because he “has rights.” Then she was fired, too.
She appealed internally. Con Ed was supposed to respond to the appeal within 30 days, but never did, the suit said. She’s suing to get her job back, back pay and money damages for the “unlawful retaliation.”
Schwarz, 49, filed suit against the utility in February for unspecified money damages, charging he endured “anguish and pain and suffering” from Con Ed's “discriminatory conduct.”
A rep for Con Ed said, “We will respond to the suit in court.”