Cop’s joke is costly mistake

When a fellow police officer offered to buy Aneta Kwiatkowski’s old cell phone from her, she told him he could have it free, according to the complaint filed in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn in April 2005.
&#8220She gave it for free to at least five people in the command for free, why shouldn’t she give it to you,” said Sergeant John Dorst within earshot of five other colleagues after overhearing the exchange, the court documents read.
When Kwiatkowski began to cry at the remark, believing it was an intentional attempt to impugn her character, Dorst allegedly told her, &#8220it was a joke,” according to the court documents.
However, the joke fell flat on December 18 when the Federal Court ordered the City of New York and Dorst to pay Kwiatkowski $245,000 and $5,000 respectively to settle a lawsuit brought by her against them.
The suit alleged that Kwiatkowski was the object of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and threat of retaliation from Dorst and that, despite conducting an internal investigation that substantiated the majority of her claims, the NYPD’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) office did little to remedy the situation.
It began in April 2001 when Dorst allegedly touched Kwiatkowski’s leg in a sexual manner while the two were seated in a department car, according to the complaint.
In the following months he allegedly attempted to kiss Kwiatkowski, asked her repeatedly for sexual favors, made inappropriate racial and sexual comments and alluded to co-workers that she was free with sexual favors.
In September 2003, Kwiatkowski made a formal complaint about Dorst to the EEO. That office investigated the complaint and in a letter sent to Kwiatkowski in January 2004, told her that it had substantiated a number of her claims against Dorst including his sexually inappropriate statements to her and repeated requests for sexual favors.
The division did not prove Kwiatkowski’s claims that Dorst had threatened to retaliate against her by rating her job performance as &#8220below standard” and labeling her a potential EEO complainant if she filed a formal complaint against Dorst as she suggested, the court documents read.
Despite assurances that Dorst would be transferred to another precinct, he was not, the lawsuit claimed, leaving Kwiatkowski open to further harassment from Dorst and ultimately leading her to file her suit.
According to published reports, Alan Schlesinger, a lawyer with the City’s Law Department, said that the decision to settle the lawsuit was made after weighing the costs of further litigation.
Kwiatkowski’s lawyer, Eric Sanders, of Jeffrey L. Goldberg, P.C. in Lake Success, did not return phone calls requesting comments on the case.
Dorst’s attorney, Bruno Vincent Gioffre, Jr. of the law firm Quinn, Ferrante and Mellea in White Plains could not be reached at press time.