Three employees terminated from their positions filed a lawsuit against RIOC, CEO Shelton J. Haynes, Chief Counsel Gretchen Robinson, COO Altheria Jackson, and HR Director Tajuna Sharpe on Valentine’s Day in 2023. They accused the executives of retaliating against them for engaging in protected whistleblower activities. The parties involved have now reached a mutually agreed upon settlement: Case closed.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
An Ugly, Expensive Case Closed
Plaintiffs in this case are former employees Erica Spencer-EL, Jessica Cerone and Amy Smith. In general, these three comprised RIOC’s communications and community relations team.
Plaintiffs demand the following relief against Defendants:
(a) compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial;
(b) punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial;
(c) the costs and disbursements of this action;
(e) attorneys’ fees;
(f) all relevant interest; and
(g) any such other relief to Plaintiffs as this Court deems just and proper
That’s a summery from the lawsuit filed a year and a half ago, and they wanted a minimum of $1 million each for it. The case in now closed, but we don’t and probably never will know what they got in the settlement. The amount is almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands, maybe over a million dollars.
Note: Attached below is an unedited copy of the lawsuit
Add attorney fees, and you’ve got a giant burden shouldered by Roosevelt Islanders for acts by people they never elected or approved. Residents gain no benefits whatsoever.
Summary from the Lawsuit:
This is an action for illegal workplace retaliation caused by Defendants against Plaintiffs for their whistleblower complaints made to report corruption, misconduct, and violations of law made internally and later externally to the New York State Office of Inspector General and to the New York State Office of the State Comptroller. As a direct result of Plaintiffs’ good-faith whistleblower complaints each of the three Plaintiffs were improperly and impermissibly subjective to a hostile work environment before ultimately being terminated from RIOC in violation of, inter alia, New York Labor Law § 740 and Civil Service Law §75-b.
The settlement probably implies that RIOC agreed that the misconduct described above happened to some extent.
The Parties Involved
In concert with RIOC‘s extreme penchant for secrecy, both Jackson and Sharpe have left the state agency without explanation. Both departures were abrupt and unexplained.
Fellow defendants Shelton J. Haynes and Gretchen Robinson are under suspension, getting full pay and benefits while contributing no work since January. Five unnamed employees accused them of creating a hostile environment plus numerous ethical lapses loudly enough that, after months of it, RIOC’s Board finally acted.
None of the accusations against Haynes and/or Robinson have been proven, but this is only one of at least a half-dozen or more lawsuits, most still in litigation.
Defendants Spencer-EL, Cerone and Smith formed the communications and community relations team within RIOC. In 2021, actions by Haynes and Robinson raised enough concerns that, according to their lawsuit, each submitted whistleblower complaints. Centrally, those evolved around RIOC’s development of the Swift Emergency Medical COVID testing site.
Those concerns, plus others, found their way into a rambling, unattributed letter submitted directly to a dozen of more public officials in early 2022.. At least one recipient, Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright, forwarded the letter to the Inspector General for review. The “We Deserve Better” missive had the flailing characteristics of a six-year-old swatting away mosquitoes. While some of the accusations registered as real, some were roundhouse shots at an apparent enemies list. Some things were true. Others were libelous and/or fictions.
One day after the letter became public, Sharpe – working with Jackson – fired Spencer-EL over a resume error so old it had whiskers. The defendants maintain, that was done on orders from Haynes. Dismissals of Cerone and Smith soon followed. Haynes justified their dismissals as “restructuring.”
Spencer-EL, Smith and Cerone Disagreed
And they filed a lawsuit, but its impact stretched much further and deeper. Details revealed about how RIOC functioned under Haynes – or really, malfunctioned – made its operations look like the mishmash of patronage-powered in-fighting and backstabbing it long seemed from the outside.
Worse yet, Smith swore to a painfully detailed experience in which Haynes made extensive efforts at evading culpability for a young man’s drowning in Sportspark. He rewrote her press relief, resulting in a cold mangling of facts.
Later, PSD Chief Kevin Brown, a close ally of Haynes’s, shared video of the drowning with her, showing RIOC lifeguards absent from the pool when tragedy struck. Brown apparently did not investigate nor did he consider charges for negligence. Smith suggests it was misconduct aimed at protecting Haynes and his longtime friend Jackson.
Haynes demanded a policy of no written communications within RIOC about the incident. Brown and Jackson, who was ultimately responsible for the pool’s operations, went along as did Chief Counsel Robinson. Neither they nor Haynes offered any public condolences for the victim’s family.
Case Closed But Exposed
For RIOC, this closes one of the most egregious chapters in its often troubled history, but for Haynes, Robinson, Jackson and Sharpe, it’s less than a slap on the wrist. New York State and ultimately taxpayers will foot all the bills, including the settlement but will never hear the full facts.
Numerous investigations, some years old, against RIOC continue along with the lawsuits. The results will bring more financial losses to Roosevelt Islanders, including over a million dollars in legal fees defending Haynes and his associates.
It’s a classic no-win for Roosevelt Islanders, but at least some movement has begun. Hopefully, more will follow. And soon.
I Take the Tram Because I Have To
There are people on this Island you learn to recognize long before you ever learn their names. Like the real estate man with the blue goatee, the one whose name I keep forgetting, though I could pick him out of a lineup any time of day.
