NYPD employee forced out of job after reporting boss for sitting on her desk visibly aroused: lawsuit

A former NYPD employee claims her boss — who boasted that he was related to Mayor Adams — sexually harassed her by sitting on her desk visibly aroused and then ran a retaliation campaign and fired her after she reported his boorish behavior.

The trouble for one-time Bronx City Council hopeful Lattina Brown started soon after she began her $70,000-a-year, citywide community coordinator post with the NYPD in June 2022, her federal lawsuit alleges.

Brown, 39, claims that days after taking the job she was traveling with her boss, NYPD Community Coordinator Brian Adams, 52, to a meeting at Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s office in an unmarked department vehicle.

As she exited the vehicle, a woman she didn’t know told her, “You are very beautiful and I love your dress,” Brown said court papers. In response, Adams allegedly told her, “That woman wasn’t trying to compliment you, she wants to sleep with you. You have women checking you out because you look good.”

After the meeting, the two returned to the car where Adams allegedly asked her if she was married and if she was “horny.”

Brown “immediately felt concerned for her safety and felt traumatic flashbacks to a previous sexual assault she suffered,” the suit against Adams and the city alleges.

On June 21, 2022, Brown claims that Adams sat on her desk and spread his legs while “displaying his erect penis through his pants,” according to the suit. Adams noticed a nearby police officer looking and abruptly walked away.

The officer observed Brown was upset and escorted her outside for air, according to the lawsuit. Brown told the officer about the harassment she had allegedly been experiencing. The officer urged her to file a complaint, which she later did.

The suit claims Adams gloated that he was “related to Mayor Eric Adams.”

The mayor’s office didn’t comment when asked if the two were related, but no familial relationship could be found in a documents search.

Brian Adams declined to comment, but a police source said he denied the allegations and that Brown complained “after she knew she was getting fired.”

As a City Council staffer, Brown had previously reported a supervisor in then-City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s office for allegedly making disparaging remarks about minorities.

Brown, who ran as an independent for a Bronx City Council seat in 2021, reported the alleged harassment by Adams to Police Commissioner Edward Caban, whom she knew from her community work. The suit alleges Caban did nothing to report the conduct despite Brown calling him about it several times.

Another employee, Arianna Dillon, who’s named in the suit, allegedly told Brown that Adams had done the same thing to her. Dillon no longer works for the department and declined to comment when reached by phone.

Adding insult to injury, Adams also accused Brown of being a thief, she contended in the legal filing.

She used her corporate American Express Card to plan a “Community Day” event in the Bronx 52nd Precinct in July 2021. But Adams called an investigative unit on her. The allegations were later dropped, the suit alleges.

Brown, a single mother, filed a formal complaint regarding harassment, discrimination and retaliation on July 22, 2021, and was transferred from the division. She was formally terminated in November 2022. She’s seeking unspecified damages.