She alleges a “hostile work environment” that was “toxic,” and now a former youth officer out of the 103rd Precinct is suing the NYPD, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and a colleague.
Officer Veronica Schultz claims in court documents that, beginning in 2008, Officer James Briones’ “persistent discrimination against and harassment of . . . created and fostered a hostile work environment.”
Among the allegations, she claims that Briones made “abusive, vulgar, obscene and inappropriate comments” about her body, asked her out on dates, and even “rubbed up against her with a hard penis on multiple occasions,” according to her lawyer, Eric Sanders.
Additionally, the suit claims, Briones received a command discipline for alleged unauthorized use of an NYPD van – which, she says, Briones had okayed earlier for the youth program.
Schultz, 34, of Suffolk County, says she filed a complaint with the NYPD Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), after which her colleagues engaged in a “malicious campaign to retaliate” against her.
In fact, Sanders told The Courier, he is also planning on suing Deputy Chief Michael Blake, who had been commanding officer of the 103, “for his inaction and his own version of trying to date Schultz.”
“He engaged in the same harassing conduct,” Sanders alleged.
Blake could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Then, after the May 2007 NYPD talent show, at which Schultz’s pants accidentally fell down, exposing her underwear, Briones repeatedly allegedly asked for a copy of the video.
When Schultz observed Briones and other officers watching the DVD in the precinct, she began crying and told him she felt “degraded, embarrassed and humiliated,” but Briones allegedly responded, “You know boys will be boys . . . you are very sexy.”
The suit claims that the harassment continued, with Schultz assigned to foot patrol, numerous youth activities cancelled, and, in April 2009, she says she was dismissed from the School Unit, at which time she “suffered a loss of a unique career opportunity.”
A 2009 letter from the NYPD EEO said that “no case of employment discrimination could be discerned.”
However, the single mother has said she “suffered extreme and severe emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of self esteem, and pain and suffering.”
The New York City Law Department could not comment on the suit, as it is pending.
