Harassed 3 Subordinates
Urge Firing of HRA Official for Abuses

By HOWARD MEGDAL

A Security Supervisor with the Human Resources Administration should be fired for multiple incidents of sexual harassment and fraudulent use of department vehicles, according to an Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings judge's recommendation last month.

Cost of HRA Business?

Wayne Allen, a Captain with HRA's Office of Security Services, received a citation for running a red light while using a department vehicle for personal driving, then parked another department vehicle illegally while answering that citation on department time.

Mr. Allen claimed that because he received both tickets while using an HRA vehicle, they came under the aegis of official department business.

He also sexually harassed three different women he supervised while on site at 210 Livingston Street in 2004, the OATH Administrative Law Judge concluded.

Judge Joan R. Salzman found credible allegations that Mr. Allen made inappropriate comments to these women including, "I can imagine you in a Jacuzzi in the Poconos with your breast exposed." He told another woman that he compared favorably with a banana on her desk. He sat on the desk of a third woman as she worked, and tried to kiss her.

He was also found to have failed to submit driving route sheets and to have falsified them on numerous occasions.

Repeat Offender

In light of his having been previously suspended for misuse of city vehicles, Judge Salzman recommended that Mr. Allen be fired.

"Respondent has shown himself to be a poor representative of the Human Resources Administration, and a potential liability to the agency," Judge Salzman said in her decision. "He was both sloppy and dishonest about the privileges granted him with respect to the City vehicle, and has abused in a most arrogant and offensive fashion the authority invested in him to supervise the [security] guards."

A spokesman for HRA said the department had yet to fully review the ALJ's recommendation.