Hempstead to settle town employee's sexual harassment suit against commissioner

The Hempstead Town Board has approved borrowing $350,000 to settle a federal sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a town employee against a town department commissioner.

In 2021, town employee Dana McNamee sued her former supervisor, Gerald Marino, Hempstead town's general services commissioner, and the town in U.S. Eastern District Court in Brooklyn, alleging violations of her civil rights and violations of New York State laws against retaliation.

McNamee, formerly Dana Mulligan, alleged in the suit that she was transferred to a dead-end job in September 2019 after filing reports of sexual harassment against Marino.

Leadership in the department tolerated inappropriate crude sexual banter, creating a hostile work environment, McNamee alleged in the suit. She also alleged that Marino had denied her a promotion in retaliation for rebuffing his sexual advances and had sexually harassed her for years while making her dependent on him for career advancement, according to court filings.

In January, U.S. District Judge Allyne R. Ross ruled that McNamee’s allegations of retaliation for reporting harassment could proceed to trial while making no ruling on her hostile work environment claims. She dismissed McNamee’s allegations that Marino had denied her a promotion for refusing his sexual advances, citing a lack of evidence and a plausible rebuttal by the town.

"There are genuine fact issues as to whether Ms. Mulligan’s transfer [to the allegedly dead-end job] was indeed voluntary," Ross said in her January ruling, adding that there were disputable facts as to whether her treatment could have served as an example to others to dissuade them from reporting harassment. A judge or jury could "conclude that harassment complaints were not taken seriously or were met with retaliation," Ross wrote. 

In a statement, Hempstead Town Attorney John Maccarone said last month that "rather than continue to spend more time and resources litigating the matter," the town entered in a settlement in which it "admits to no wrongdoing whatsoever."

McNamee’s attorney, Poughkeepsie-based Laura Wong-Pan, said in a statement that the lawsuit had been "resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties."

"This has been a long and painful journey for Dana, but she’s ready to move on and close this chapter," Wong-Pan said.

After Marino was appointed commissioner of general services in 2016, he brought McNamee over from the water department, where they had worked together previously, to be his assistant, according to court filings. Marino gave her responsibilities beyond her official role as an administrator and made her dependent on him for career advancement while setting the stage for unwanted sexual advances, she alleged in the suit.

"Eventually it had progressed to forcibly pulling me close in his private office kitchen and sticking his tongue down my throat, slapping my [expletive] and reaching down my shirt to grab my breast and nipple," McNamee said in a court filling. "I would say no and move away but he would laugh."

Marino, who is also the Republican committee chair for the North Merrick Republican Club, said in a deposition that he had a close relationship with McNamee for years and bought her gifts, including jewelry and a bed as a housewarming gift, and had her over to his home for lunches. He also said in the deposition that he had helped get her second jobs and had "probably" given her cash so that she could write checks in her name to Republican Party committees.

In 2019, following a new sexual harassment training program instituted in the town, McNamee and two others in her department made internal complaints about work conditions, describing the "environment as a crude ‘free-for-all’ with ‘no rules,’ permeated by ‘locker room’ ‘dirty talk,’ unprofessional banter and sexual touching," according to the suit. Employees "flooded the work environment with graphic sexual remarks and perverted topics, including their sexual fetishes," according to the suit.

All of the complainants were transferred to other departments, according to deposition testimony cited by the judge.