A female staff attorney for the New York County Defenders Services says she was sexually harassed for years by a colleague, who then became a manager, and when she alerted management to the issue, she was retaliated against for it, according to a recent complaint filed in New York County Supreme Court.

For years, Alexandra Bonacarti says Christopher Boyle, who started as a fellow staff attorney with NYCDS, expressed unwanted and unreciprocated romantic feelings toward her. Over time, she claims, his actions escalated into sexual harassment.

In 2000, Boyle allegedly told Bonacarti he wanted to have an affair with her, and that they were meant for each other. He would find excuses to be near her at work, sought to coax her into cab rides, and followed her home, she claims. He became angry with his wife for becoming pregnant again, believing it would hurt his chances with Bonacarti, she says, later telling her that he left his wife to be with Bonacarti.

Bonacarti says Boyle's behavior grew threatening. He told her at one point she was drunk enough he could have raped her.

In the suit brought under the city's human rights law, Bonacarti lays out a detailed account of persistent harassment by Boyle. But equally detailed are her allegations against the public defender organization's leadership, specifically its executive director, Stanislao Germán.

Bonacarti alleges that Germán and others at NYCDS went beyond simply dismissing her concerns, raised on numerous occasions, about Boyle's threatening and harassing behavior. She says she was subjected to retaliatory actions, including an undeserved suspension that forced a client of hers to spend an extra four months at Rikers Island after his trial had to be rescheduled.

Defendants' counsel in the suit, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart shareholder Aaron Warshaw, disputed the claims in the suit. In a statement, Warshaw said Bonacarti's allegations “have no merit whatsoever.”

“Ms. Bonacarti remains employed by the organization and she has been treated fairly,” Warshaw said. “We will file a specific and thorough response with the court when it is proper to do so. Any further comment at this time would be inappropriate.”

City University of New York Law School professor Rick Rossein, an expert in employment discrimination and litigation, noted that the complaint was expertly drafted by Bonacarti's counsel, Beranbaum Menken name attorney John Beranbaum, and contained “very strong allegations” that NYCDS and its leadership failed to follow the organization's own internal harassment and hostile work environment policy, which Beranbaum outlines at the top of the complaint.

“He's anticipating standing before a jury and very successfully saying to a jury, 'Look, this organization had a policy and I'll tell you what the policy says, and here's what they actually did,'” Rossein said.

In 2010, after Boyle split from his wife, Bonacarti says she explicitly stated she would never have a romantic relationship with him. For a time, things got somewhat better, according to the complaint. Even as Boyle continued to “act as if he were a spurned lover,” they stopped communicating.

Then, a few years later, Boyle was promoted to a supervisor position. Despite her best attempts at avoiding him, Bonacarti alleges that Boyle used his position to redouble his harassment of Bonacarti.

Bonacarti claims she brought her concerns about Boyle to the attention of Germán the day after she learned of his promotion. Germán's alleged reaction at the time sets a pattern revisited throughout the complaint. According to Bonacarti, Germán was dismissive of her concerns, telling her that the situation between her and Boyle was “ancient history,” and refused to reassign Boyle.

According to Bonacarti, two other supervisors were alerted to her concerns about Boyle as well, including her direct supervisor, Neal Allen.

Bonacarti alleges Boyle was emboldened by his promotion and increasingly sought unwanted contact with Bonacarti, going so far as attempting to transfer his office to one adjacent to her own, which failed, thanks to the intervention of two other supervisors.

Bonacarti says she continued to notify Germán and others—including her direct supervisor Allen, and the public defender organization's director of human resources, Wendy D'Amico—of Boyle's behavior, to little avail. Germán went so far to allegedly tell Allen that Bonacarti simply had “to deal with it.”

“He's a supervisor,” Germán allegedly informed Allen.

Things came to a head on May 10. Bonacarti says she was working an arraignment shift when Boyle showed up at the court. Supervisors are not generally assigned to arraignment shifts, she contends in the complaint. Boyle's only reason for being there was her, Bonacarti alleges.

Boyle's presence immediately unnerved Bonacarti. He lurked. He leered. At one point, she claims, he stood directly behind her while she sat at the work table used by attorneys. Boyle is allegedly 6-foot, 4-inches. Bonacarti claims to be 5-foot, 6-inches.

She says she asked him to “please move.” When he didn't, she threatened to call Carolyn Wilson, NYCDS's director. That's when Boyle blew up on her, according to Bonacarti. He refused to move away, and loudly told her, “Enough!” She immediately left the courtroom to call Wilson and complain directly to the organization's second in command that Boyle was harassing her and creating a hostile work environment.

What followed, according to Bonacarti, was a series of retaliatory actions against her on the part of Germán, despite an internal review by the sexual harassment liaison in the office that found that Boyle had, in fact, harassed Bonacarti. She claims Germán summarily suspended her for three weeks without pay only four days after receiving the internal report, and despite Bonacarti not receiving any warnings and having never before been disciplined.

The reason? Another employee had apparently filed a complaint against Bonacarti. That individual is not named, but the complaint notes that, on information and belief, Boyle filed a complaint against Bonacarti after hearing she was on the phone with Wilson after the May 10 incident. The “evident purpose” of the move was to deflect Bonacarti's charges pre-emptively, according to the plaintiff.

According to Bonacarti, when he was announcing her suspension, Germán reiterated “sex-biased and sex-stereotyped comments” levied against her during a performance review nearly a year earlier—shortly after she raised her issues over Boyle's promotion with him. Bonacarti contends she received a lower rating than she deserved because of Germán, who she alleges criticized her for being “emotional” and “out of control” in the court setting. She claims the comments are unfounded.

The effect of her suspension was unfairly felt by her clients, Bonacarti alleges. A trial for a client already detained at Rikers for over a year was scheduled to start during the suspension period. The client faced a potential life sentence. Rather than allow Bonacarti to try the case, plaintiff alleges Germán and others at NYCDS worked to adjourn the trial's start date, adding another four months onto the client's stay at Rikers.

NYCDS and Germán went on to conduct an untimely, “sham” investigation into her claims against Boyle, according to Bonacarti. They took a month to notify her of the investigation, she says, and another six weeks before she was interviewed. Germán tapped not one of the dozens of attorneys on staff, or one of its board of directors, to conduct the investigation, Bonacarti alleges. Instead, he picked the office manager, who Bonacarti says was a close personal friend of Germán.

Ultimately, four months after she filed her complaint, Bonacarti says she was informed that the investigation determined her harassment claims against Boyle were “inconclusive.” She claims the decision amounted to a cover-up of Boyle's long-standing sexual harassment against her. Boyle went undisciplined by NYCDS and Germán, amounting to a tacit condoning of his actions, Bonacarti alleges.

In a statement, Bonacarti's counsel lauded her courage to bring the suit while still employed by NYCDS.

“She's been a public defender for 20 years and she wasn't about to abandon her clients,” Beranbaum said.

The public defenders' actions since Bonacarti brought the suit have been “troubling,” according to Beranbaum. No anti-harassment training for staff or management has been held, he said. Additionally, he said his client has been “reprimanded … and threatened with further discipline” for speaking with other attorneys about working conditions at NYCDS.

An unfair labor charge was filed with the National Labor Relations Board over what Beranbaum said was an interference of her right to engage in concerted activity.

Through Beranbaum, Bonacarti declined to be interviewed by the New York Law Journal.

According to Brooklyn Law School professor Minna Kotkin, director of the school's Employment Law Clinic, these sorts of complaints are found in disproportionate numbers among small organizations with limited resources, such as nonprofits. These issues can lead to a lack of a robust human resources department and the like, Kotkin said.

But as likely, she said, is a cultural misread that sees the altruistic pursuits of an organization like NYCDS lead to a failure to make sure proper protocols around harassment are in place, known about, and acted upon correctly.

“I think this really arises from an organization that probably sees itself as upholding the good and the just, we're all in this together, and we should just work out our problems and not be so caught up in procedure,” Kotkin said.

CUNY's Rossein agreed.

“I've seen it over and over again in nonprofit organizations: They don't pay attention to these kinds of workplace interactions and issues,” he said.

Both Kotkin and Rossein faulted NYDCS's management for not bringing in an outside investigator—even a member of its board who isn't employed by the organization—to handle the investigation to ensure impartiality and perspective.