Gina L. Bianchi Sues DCJS Commissioner Michael C Green and Others After She was Terminated For Cooperating With DCJS

Brian Gestring, director of Forensic Science Office for DCJS, and a members of the New York State Forensic Science Commission, takes part in a commission meeting on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in Albany, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski/Times Union)

Attorney who was fired for cooperating with inspector general files lawsuit

ALBANY — A female attorney who was terminated from her job at the state Division of Criminal Justice Services for cooperating in a sexual harassment investigation filed a federal lawsuit Friday accusing the agency's leader of covering up the allegations against a former forensics director.

The civil rights lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by Gina L. Bianchi against DCJS Commissioner Michael C. Green and two other agency leaders, general counsel John Czajka and human resources director Karen Davis.

The lawsuit also targets state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott, whose office conducted the harassment investigation of former DCJS director Brian J. Gestring, and subsequently turned over Bianchi's confidential testimony to the agency without her knowledge.

The decision by Green last December to terminate Bianchi — after interrogating her for more than two hours with a copy of her testimony from the inspector general's office — has resonated across state agencies and left many workers saying they no longer feel safe cooperating with Leahy Scott's office.

Leahy Scott's decision and Green's actions have not been questioned by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has declined comment.

The lawsuit notes that Green took no action against Gestring, who was found to have engaged in years of sexual harassment, racism, ageism and workplace violence.

A DCJS spokeswoman on Friday declined comment and said they have not been served with a copy of the lawsuit. A spokesman for Leahy Scott also declined to comment.

Bianchi's lawsuit said that Green, who had counseled Gestring in 2012 for workplace misconduct, told her repeatedly during the December interrogation that she should have been more evasive in her testimony to the inspector general's office, "with a statement that was, in sum or substance, 'I do not have a specific fact upon which to base an answer to your question.'"

Bianchi said that in 2012, not longer after Gestring was hired as director of the agency's Office of Forensic Science, that Green removed Gestring from her supervision. The move took place after Bianchi had documented Gestring's alleged misconduct in a counseling memo. When she subsequently reported additional acts of inappropriate behavior by Gestring, the complaint states, Green did nothing and told her to "stay out of OFS" — a reference to Gestring's office.

"The actions taken by defendants have been taken with the intention to chill the speech of plaintiff, as well as the speech of all DCJS employees — and, indeed, all state employees generally — who might consider complaining of, and/or testifying about, civil rights and other violations," the complaint states.

The agency's decision to punish Bianchi and another female employee who testified about Gestring's alleged misconduct was exposed by the Times Union in a story published on March 18. Cuomo's office subsequently issued a statement saying the governor had asked the state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics to conduct another investigation — the fourth investigation of the case by a state agency. The probe by JCOPE has languished and Bianchi and the other female employee, Kimberly Schiavone, have not been interviewed by its investigators.

Bianchi and Schiavone, who was transferred out of the forensic science office against her wishes after she filed a complaint against Gestring, were later ordered by DCJS officials to move into smaller offices — including one that was formerly a closet. DCJS then rescinded its directive against Bianchi not long after the Times Union asked what had prompted the decision.

The lawsuit claims that employees who cooperated with Leahy Scott's investigation of Gestring last year "were specifically told, and/or understood, that the sworn testimony they provided would be confidential.  ... It is not the standard or routine practice of the office of the New York state inspector general to release tapes or transcripts of state employees' testimony to those employees' supervisors, or to agency heads, or to agency counsels in connection with the inspector general's investigations."

Gestring was abruptly fired March 23 for what the agency said was an unrelated complaint involving inappropriate comments made at an off-site training seminar in June 2017. Sources familiar with that allegation said the incident took place during a DNA training session at the State Police crime laboratory, where Gestring allegedly had made a vulgar remark as the group examined a rape case involving young children. A female State Police scientist filed a complaint about his remark, but the agency took no action.

The investigation of Gestring revealed a history of offensive and inappropriate behavior that began shortly after he started working for DCJS in July 2012. Records indicate that about four months after Gestring was hired, he received two counseling memos for misbehavior. Gestring signed the memos certifying that he had read them, but added handwritten notes claiming he disagreed with the findings, had been forced to sign them, and that staff at DCJS had "agendas," according to details of the inspector general's investigation shared with the Times Union.

Leahy Scott's investigators, who obtained sworn testimony from multiple DCJS employees, said they were also told that Gestring had once encouraged a female manager to file fraudulent sexual harassment charges against a male colleague in an apparent effort to have him terminated. The woman refused.

In October, Leahy Scott and her deputy inspector general, Spencer Freedman, met with Czajka, DCJS's top legal counsel, and Green to outline the findings of their investigation.

Leahy Scott, who was appointed inspector general by Cuomo in 2013, followed up the October meeting with a five-page letter to DCJS on Dec. 6 outlining the findings of her office's investigation. The letter recommended the agency take action against Gestring and two other officials accused of mishandling the allegations, First Deputy Commissioner Mark Bonacquist and Davis, the human resources director.

The agency did not take action against those employees. Instead, DCJS said it had conducted its own investigation and could not sustain the allegations against Gestring.

Bianchi, an attorney who has worked at DCJS for 24 years, was terminated by Green a day before Leahy Scott's report — in the form of a letter — was sent to Green. It's unclear why Leahy Scott outlined her findings in a letter rather than a report, which are normally made public.

Although Bianchi was terminated, she was able to fall back into a lower-paying job with the agency due to state hiring regulations, but took a $44,000-a-year pay cut.

Schiavone had filed a workplace violence complaint against Gestring last August, but the agency did not follow up and never interviewed her about the complaint, said John W. Bailey, who is the attorney for Schiavone and Bianchi.

In a prior statement, DCJS said its decision last December to terminate Bianchi and transfer Schiavone were "appropriate actions ... to maintain the appropriate work environment at DCJS."