Mayor’s ‘perv’ aide
Accused of sex-nix retaliation
A top aide to Mayor Adams sabotaged the career of an NYPD sergeant who rejected his sexual advances — and was so well known for his pervy proclivities that a department chief refused to leave him alone with any woman on his team, according to a new lawsuit.
Former cop Roxanne Ludemann’s suit accuses Adams senior adviser Timothy Pearson of engaging in a stomach-turning pattern of sexual harassment that included allegedly cornering her in a copy room during a December 2022 office party so he could rub her shoulders.
“[He] would regularly harass [Ludemann] when he saw her . . . and wanted to make plaintiff his driver in order to gain private access to her to continue to sexually harass [her],” states the civil complaint filed Thursday.
Inside the lawsuit
The suit claimed Pearson’s alleged abuses led to Ludemann being passed over for promotion several times and eventually to bogus disciplinary charges being brought in retaliation for her complaints, the Manhattan Supreme Court suit said.
This, along with a dearth of overtime pay — which allegedly dried up after she came forward with her accusations — forced the veteran sergeant of 18 years out of the department in January 2024.
“Plaintiff did not want to retire from the NYPD at that time but was forced to retire as the abuse, lack of promotional opportunities, harassment, lack of overtime, disparate treatment and retaliation became so severe that [she] felt compelled to retire,” John Scola, her attorney, wrote in the suit.
“If Plaintiff acquiesced to the sexual advances of Defendant Pearson, she would have been promoted.”
The NYPD declined to comment on the litigation Thursday, saying instead the department “does not tolerate discrimination or sexual harassment in any form and is committed to respectful work environments for our diverse workforce.”
Scola charged that both the department and City Hall “have known about the sexual harassment by Tim Pearson for more than a year and have refused to remove him from office.”
“During that time, Pearson used his power within the NYPD to ruin the career of a distinguished sergeant who refused to acquiesce to his sexual advances,” Scola told The Post.
Ludemann claimed in the suit that she lost more than $2 million worth of income because of the discriminatory and retaliatory actions.
She wants a judge to grant her compensatory, emotional distress and punitive damages against the defendants, which include Pearson, the city, its Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.
Tarnished exit
In 2023, the department’s Internal Affairs division began investigating Ludemann and allegedly confiscated her cellphone and locked her out of the NYPD system for several weeks, according to the suit.
In August 2023, the department charged her with behavior unbecoming to a supervisor and failure to follow instructions, the suit said. By December, she filed for retirement. On Jan. 31, she left the NYPD.