When a Queens cop’s pants accidentally slipped off during
an NYPD talent show to reveal a thong, she couldn’t
imagine being more embarrassed.
Then she walked into the 103rd Precinct days later to
find her boss, Sgt. James Briones, showing a video of the
humiliating dance number to 10 fellow cops.
Officer Veronica Schultz left in tears.
the harassment started long before the talent show mishap.
"He asked me out on several occasions and when I told him 'No,'
he retaliated against me when I wouldn't give in to him," Schultz,
34, told the Daily News.
"He looked directly at my breasts when talking to me," she said.
"Almost every day he mentioned my lips, he said he was attracted
to my shape and rubbed up against me. I just felt humiliated."
When Briones heard about the wardrobe malfunction, he hounded
her for the video. She'd been performing Ciara's R&B hit "Promise"
with other female cops who called themselves "The Rockaways"
at the Patrol Borough Queens South talent show at York
College in May 2007.
Briones seargent somehow got a copy of the video, and showed it
to other cops on a laptop computer, the suit charges.
"Why are you so upset? You have a nice a--," Briones said to
Schultz, according to the complaint. "Put me in the show.
I want to be in your show so I can rub up on you.
You look hot and sexy."
Schultz, a single mother with a 13-year-old son, complained
to her commanding officer and reported the incident to the
Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.
Briones did not return a call. A spokeswoman for the
Law Department declined to comment.
Schultz said Briones took out his frustration on the youth
programs she ran - even taking away the police van used to
transport kids. She was eventually transferred out of the youth
officer job, and is on regular patrol in the 103rd Precinct.
"It's a classic case of sexual harassment in which upper
management takes no action to protect the victim, and instead
they go about discrediting her," said Schultz's lawyer, Eric Sanders
