New York Civil Rights Attorney Eric Sanders, Esq., of ¸£Àû¼§., alleges in a $15 million Notice of Claim filing that NYPD Housing Police Service Area No.: 8 police supervisors actively participated, ratified, condoned or acquiesced to the creation of a racially and sexually charged work atmosphere

According to the claim, from June 19, 2011, through the present, the Claimant, Eunice Vilaseca, a Medium Brown Skinned Dominican female police officer has been subjected to the highly offensive discriminatory conduct of Lieutenant Dennis Azambuja (Light Skinned Hispanic Male).  Lieutenant Azambuja openly announced in the workplace that he has a “Hit Listâ€� of ‘minority officers’ meaning African-American and Hispanic officers that he dislikes due to their race and/or ethnicity.  This “Hit Listâ€� includes Caucasian Male officers who closely affiliate themselves with their minority partners.  Lieutenant Azambuja openly makes racially offensive jokes and comments about African-Americans.  Additionally, Lieutenant Azambuja openly refers to females as “Bitches.â€�  The other police supervisors actively participated, ratified, condoned or acquiesced to Lieutenant Azambuja’s discriminatory conduct.

Ms. Vilaseca has filed numerous complaints with the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Internal Affairs Bureau.  Police Officer Glenn Bysterbusch (Caucasian Male) gave numerous witness statements supporting her claims.  Ms. Vilaseca alleges that the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity have done nothing to protect her or Police Officer Bysterbusch.  Commanding Officer Captain Kevin Maloney (Caucasian Male) and Lieutenant Azambuja as well as the other police supervisors have responded by retaliating against them filing falsified disciplinary charges, transferring them to an undesirable tour, undesirable patrol assignments, etc.

Lieutenant Azambuja allegedly told Sergeants Rosemary Davis (Dark Skinned Hispanic Female) and John Grasso (Caucasian Male) that he had a “Hit Listâ€� and that he is going to crush the officers on the list.  Ms. Vilaseca alleges that she objected to Lieutenant Azambuja’s discriminatory conduct.  According to the claim, the “Hit Listâ€� is similar in nature and goals to the one maintained by (deceased) former Chief of Personnel Michael A. Markman (Caucasian Male) as discovered in Patricia A. Raniola V. The City of New York, et al., 243 F3d 610 (2d Cir. 2001).

According to the claim, Lieutenant Azambuja was reading a supermarket circular and made the following racially insensitive comments:

• “Hey Rose (Sergeant Rosemary Davis) there is a sale on bananas.  Get it, bananas and monkeys’.â€�
• Sergeant Trevor Allen (African-American Male) looks like an “Oreo Cookieâ€�
• Women are “Bitchesâ€�
• Made a comment about Ms. Vilaseca’s “Spanish hairâ€�

“The Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Internal Affairs Bureau woefully failed to protect Ms. Vilaseca’s Civil Rights by failing to take appropriate action to discipline offending employees or stop further discriminatory behavior in the workplace.  The employers’ actions are particularly egregious because the actors are police supervisors who are entrusted with direct authority over subordinates’ such as my client.â€� Eric Sanders says.

Eric Sanders, Esq., of ¸£Àû¼§., filed Notice of Claim with the New York City’s Comptroller’s Office on March 14, 2013.
¸£Àû¼§., is a nationally recognized law firm located in New York, NY, serving clients throughout the five (5) boroughs of the City of New York: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island as well as Nassau, Orange, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, focused on cases involving Civil Rights, and Civil Service Law.


 

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The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, 18 U.S.C. § 249, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, was passed on October 22, 2009, then signed into law by President Barack H. Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010 (H.R. 2647).  The Act was enacted to provide federal assistance to state and local jurisdictions as well as tribal jurisdictions to help them to more effectively investigate and prosecute hate crimes.

It also creates a new federal criminal law which criminalizes willfully causing bodily injury when:

• the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of any person or
• the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person and the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal special maritime and territorial jurisdiction

Subsection (a)(1) of § 249 criminalizes violent acts (and attempts to commit violent acts undertaken with a dangerous weapon) when those acts occur because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person.

Subsection (a)(2) of § 249 criminalizes acts of violence (and attempts to commit violent acts undertaken with a dangerous weapon) when motivated by the actual or perceived gender, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity of any person. It will also apply to violent acts motivated by animus against those religions and national origins which were not considered to be “races� at the time the Thirteenth Amendment was passed.

Subsection (a)(3) of § 249 provides for the prosecution of crimes committed because of any of the characteristics defined in (a)(1) or (a)(2), whenever such crimes occur within the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction (SMTJ) of the United States.

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The Claims Resolution Act of 2010 (Act) was enacted to resolve the water rights claims of certain Indian tribes and African-American farmers.  The Act consists of the following components: the Individual Indian Money Account Litigation Settlement, the Final Settlement of Claims Re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement, the Taos Pueblo Indian Water Rights, the Aamodt Litigation Settlement, the Reclamation Water Settlement Fund, and General Provisions.

The Indian Trust Settlement

The background of the Indian Trust Settlement began with decedent Elouise Cobell, a female member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana.  The dispute arose when Ms. Cobell, a treasurer with the Blackfeet Nation alleged that the federal government failed to account for billions of dollars in trust monies to Indian trust beneficiaries.  In 1996, Ms. Cobell filed a lawsuit in federal court, after 15 years, seven trials, ten appeals and other published decisions she was able to secure a settlement of $3.4 billion dollars that covered the potential legal claims of more than 300,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives. 

The Settlement resolves claims that the federal government violated its trust duties to individual Indian trust beneficiaries. The claims fall into three areas:

• Historical Accounting Claims state that the federal government violated its trust duties by not providing a proper historical accounting relating to IIM accounts and other trust assets.
• Trust Administration Claims include:
  • Fund Administration Claims state that the federal government violated its trust duties and mismanaged individual Indian trust funds.
  • Land Administration Claims state that the federal government violated its trust responsibilities for management of land, oil, natural gas, mineral, timber, grazing, and other resources.

The Settlement will provide:

• $1.412 billion Accounting/Trust Administration Fund, plus a $100 million Trust Administration Adjustment Fund, plus any earned interest, to pay for Historical Accounting and Trust Administration Claims. This money will also pay for the cost of administering and implementing the Settlement, as well as other expenses.
• $1.9 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund to purchase “fractionated” individual Indian trust lands. The program will allow individual Indians to get money for land interests divided among numerous owners. Land sales are voluntary. If you sell your land it will be returned to tribal control.
• Up to $60 million dollars for an Indian Education Scholarship Fund to help Native Americans attend college or vocational school. This money will come out of the $1.9 billion Trust Land Consolidation Fund and will be based upon the participation of landowners in selling these fractionated land interests.

 In Re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation Settlement

The background of the In Re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation Settlement began in 1997 and 1998, with the filing of two class-action lawsuits Pigford v. Glickman and Brewington v. Glickman.  The allegations were that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) treated black farmers unfairly when deciding to allocate price support loans, disaster payments, “farm ownership” loans, and operating loans, and that the USDA had failed to process subsequent complaints about racial discrimination.  Both cases were settled in 1999 to become the largest civil rights settlement in history.  However, the settlement was not without controversy as some 58,000 claimants missed the filing deadline.  Therefore, to remedy this controversy, the 2008 Farm Bill was enacted aka Pigford II.

Pigford II created a new right to file claims subject to some restrictions while adding an additional $100 million dollars in funding.  In essence, it gave those affected 58,000 claimants an opportunity to file their otherwise time-barred claims.  Recognizing that the additional $100 million dollars in funding would be inadequate, on February 18, 2010, Congress authorized an additional $1.15 billion dollars to cover valid claims; thereby, bringing the settlement fund to an authorized level of $1.25 billion dollars.
The settlement will provide:

• Track A Claimants – Establishes an expedited claims (standard of proof is the lower ‘substantial evidence’) process that will provide claimants who file successful claims with a cash payment of up to $50,000, plus a payment to be applied to debt owed (if any) to the USDA, plus a tax payment worth 25% of that person’s cash and loan awards.
• Track B Claimants – Establishes a more rigorous claims (standard of proof is the higher ‘preponderance of the evidence’) process that will provide claimants who file successful claims an opportunity to receive actual damages up to $250,000

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The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by White citizens to all male citizens in the United States “without distinction of race or color or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.� This piece of legislation was groundbreaking; it was the very first law ever enacted that sought to protect Blacks from discrimination.

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill the first time it was enacted by the US Congress, in 1865. President Johnson vetoed the bill again when Congress passed it for the second time in 1866 however, a majority vote of over two thirds, in both the Senate and Congress, overcame Johnson’s veto. The bill became effective on April 9, 1866.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, anti-Black sentiment was still very strong in some states, especially in the defeated South. The bill hoped to establish and enforce the status of freed slaves as equal to Whites.

This statute proved crucial, and has since impacted generations; as a result of this statute, all individuals born in the United States have been granted citizenship; regardless of their ethnic background.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted freed slaves the ability to fully participate in many legal activities that they had previously been denied; after the enactment, Blacks were able to:

– file lawsuits
– make and enforce contracts
– own property
– inherit property
– lease or sell property
The Civil Acts Rights of 1866, in itself, proved inadequate; it was unable to provide sufficient protection for Blacks, due mostly to the actions of white supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Although the law was well-intentioned, it was quickly rendered ineffective by its incompleteness.

Blacks were still discriminated against, although many of these problems were subsequently addressed by the Enforcement Act of 1871. Discrimination in many forms still existed, for nearly a century, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned racial segregation in schools and workplaces, as well as many other forms of discrimination.

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was written with Blacks in mind, the law has since been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include all ethnic groups.

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