N.Y. State’s long history of sexual harassment

Morning briefing

Thursday, March 4, 2021

I apologize for reminding you of the late Vito Lopez.

Lopez’s was a Brooklyn  assemblyman whose unwritten office policies demanded that young female staffers wear short skirts and occasionally give him neck messages. That often led to flirtatious emails and a bit of groping.

Did I mention that Lopez was 71 years old when two young staffers came forward to complain eight years ago?

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Speaker, who you may remember is in jail now, took care of the problem by writing a check for $105,000 to the two staffers to split. He wrote it off as “legal fees.” And by the way, it was taxpayer money.

What shocked me at the time was that of the 33 female members of the Assembly only one demanded that Silver resign for the coverup.

“What do they tell the next generation of young women seeking to make a difference in the world?” I wrote in my June 1, 2013 column in The Post-Star.

Lopez, the very definition of “creepy,” eventually resigned and those two young staffers ended up getting a settlement of over $500,000 from the state. Lopez contributed $35,000 of his own money and died in 2015. Taxpayers funded the rest.

A year later, Buffalo-area Assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak resigned because of ongoing sexual harassment allegations from six female staff members. Gabryszak refused to admit he did anything wrong, chalking it up to mutual banter and exchanges that maybe shouldn’t have taken place in the workplace.

Here are a couple of examples:

• Gabryszak asked two staffers to dress as sexy elves and sit on his lap for the office Christmas photo. 

• Other staffers said Gabryszak asked them to attend strip clubs and message parlors with him.

• Another staff member received a video where the assemblyman seemed to be involved in a sex act.

Gabryszak made Lopez look like a kindly old grandfather. And even though he lost his position in the Legislature, he still got to collect his $53,000 a year pension.

Three years ago, Politico reporters Jimmy Vielkind and Marie J. French published an in-depth accounting of the sexual harassment problem in state government where they followed a paper trail that includes some 1,000 complaints that have cost taxpayers more than $6 million in settlements over the past six years. If you were wondering where you tax dollars go, well, there you have it.

Over the six-year period, the state settled 54 cases for over $5.4 million by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office, had 18 out-of-court settlements tallied by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli totaling nearly $700,000 and one $60,000 judgement by the state Division of Human Rights.

State officials told the two reporters they thought the number of cases was not extreme considering the size of the state’s workforce - 132,000 employees.

During Gov.  Andrew Cuomo’s State of the State address in January 2018, he said that the state should not be paying sexual harassment settlements for its employees. I’m hoping he feels the same way now.

It’s no wonder that Gov. Cuomo seems so perplexed by the accusations of sexual harassment. It has been happening all around him for years. I guess he figured that was how everyone acts.

Out of doghouse

Joseph Girard III got at least partially out of his coach’s doghouse Wednesday night with a solid 23 minutes of play.

What was unclear was whether it was Girard’s play or the injury that hobbled freshman Kadary Richmond that kept Girard on the court.

Girard scored 7 points Wednesday on 3-for-8 shooting (1-for-3 from 3-point range) while playing 23 minutes and dealing out a team-high 7 assists

without a turnover.

Given up for dead after Saturday’s defeat, Syracuse has rallied for victories over North Carolina on Monday and Clemson on Wednesday night with experts predicted an NCAA Tournament bid is still a possibility if it can win a couple games in the ACC Tournament that begins next Wednesday.

Syracuse finished the regular season 15-7 with a 9-7 mark in the conference.