In 2016, as federal investigators dug into allegations that Mayor Bill de Blasio traded favors for political donations, a senior official at a city agency at the center of the probe was demoted and given a sharp pay cut.
That official, Geneith Turnbull, has filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that her demotion was motivated by discrimination, and was meant to punish her for standing up to her supervisors.
Ms. Turnbull was a deputy commissioner at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services until she was demoted in February 2017, in what City Hall said was a reorganization of the agency. The lawsuit, filed this month in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accused the city of demoting Ms. Turnbull in retaliation for repeatedly voicing concerns about a pay raise given to one of her subordinates, who she believed had in some way helped to protect Mr. de Blasio during the federal investigation.
The lawsuit also alleges that her demotion was part of a pattern of discrimination against older, minority employees at the agency. Ms. Turnbull is black.
Ms. Turnbull was demoted on the same day that Ricardo Morales, another senior employee at the administrative services agency, was fired. Mr. Morales has filed a notice of claim with the city in preparation for a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit; Mr. Morales had resisted pressure from City Hall over negotiations between his agency and Harendra Singh, a mayoral donor who did business with the city.
3 comments:
Not surprising. Having worked in this administration, I can tell you that some top officials have an irrational fear of/allegiance to this mayor. They follow him all the way on his idiotic ideas and force their staffs to do the same. They should wake up and fight back like this woman! BdB is not savvy like Bloomberg, he's not going anywhere after this, and he doesn't have positions in a private company to reward people with. That's part of the reason he's having trouble finding good people to lead the agencies.
If people only knew the full measure of the incompetence of this administration, they would be in the streets. It's going to be a long four years.
"Samuel O. Maduegbuna, a lawyer for Ms. Turnbull, said he had no direct evidence that the supervisor protected the mayor during the trash bag investigation, but said there is strong circumstantial evidence, characterizing the timing of the raise as “very suspicious.”
"Kimberly Joyce, a spokeswoman for the city’s law department, said in a written statement, “This raise was based on merit, something these claims lack.”
But what about the six figure tax cut of the competent government worker whistleblower? Pray tell, what was the merit behind that? Obviously to destroy this woman's life by affecting her career, reputation and livelihood.
"The court papers said that Ms. Turnbull persisted in raising objections to Ms. Camilo and another senior official, telling them that the pay increase appeared to be “a quid pro quo reward to him” for somehow “protecting” the de Blasio administration during the federal probe."
"Then in February 2017 Ms. Turnbull was demoted to the job of procurement analyst and her salary cut to $91,169 from $199,000, according to the lawsuit."
Do know one thing, that ethics and morals weren't at all based behind these spiteful and criminal orders by de Faustio and his neoliberal zombie cult of careerists.
The seething irony to all this was for the approval of rat bags which apparently has not brought down the rodent population, especially in the building on park row with the biggest dumbest ROUS* in charge
They did this to an African American woman too. And this idiot mayor had the audacity to speak about MLK in Times Square on Monday.
Viva le McResistance.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv9CkjkOyzo
I am also a victim of whistleblowing in the de Blasio administration, but in my case I took the city to Brooklyn Supreme Court, followed by Appellate Court, Second Department where the city actually admitted that they got it wrong, after more than two years of falsely accusing me of misconduct (without evidence of any kind, but the misconduct charge was payback against me for reporting a supervisor who was abusing her authority), and they finally reversed themselves on all previously held allegations against me, when they could not show any proof in Appellate Court to support their knowingly false claims against me.
But, I am still waiting for restitution and job reinstatement, as de BLASS-hole and his entirely corrupt and fearful administration retreat into silence. I have repeatedly reached out to this administration (and the Public Advocate's office as well), and no one is making me whole again, as the cover up was initially worse than the crime, and now the crime is worse than the cover up.
Because, both city and state agencies were involved in the cover up, I was forced to contact public officials of whom I am a constituent to expose the corruption, cover ups and unfair labor practices.
Anyone want to guess how much longer that it's going to take, before I see any trace of justice and accountability (before the end of my natural life span), as well as a full and honesty investigation that actually rewards a whistleblower like me?
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