Find Custodian Sexually Harassed Subordinate; Recommend He Be Fired

A Department of Education Custodian Engineer should be fired after persistently and obsessively sending romantic and sexual messages to his secretary at the elementary school where both worked, an Administrative Law Judge has recommended.

Craig Brust, who has worked for the DOE for 31 years, the last five at P.S. 188 in Coney Island, oversaw the maintenance of the building and supervised a staff including Firemen and Cleaners.

Dual Duties

He hired a secretary to deal with his paperwork, identified only as Ms. L, in 2004 under the official title of Cleaner. She worked as his secretary during the school year and as a Painter and Cleaner in the school during summers and breaks.

Ms. L, who was the only female cleaner in the school and the only female employee of Mr. Brust's, first formally complained of sexual harassment in 2006, mentioning it to the school's Principal and saying that she didn't want to come to work anymore. The Principal advised her to file a complaint with the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the schools, which she did.

She was then fired by Mr. Brust in retaliation, after which the SCI investigated him and affirmed that he had sexually harassed her, as well as uncovering financial irregularities and misconduct, such as his showing up intoxicated for work. The DOE then moved to dismiss him, leading to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings case in which Mr. Brust challenged its actions.

The charges state that after hiring Ms. L, Mr. Brust would stare at her body blatantly for extended periods of time while she was working, especially while she was painting. Ms. L testified that this made her "nervous, uncomfortable, angry," and that she would ask him, "What are you looking at? Why are you staring at me?" She added that when Mr. Brust arrived to work drunk, his behavior was even worse. Other painters under his employ backed up Ms. L's testimony.

'Told Him He Needed Help'

Later, Mr. Brust began to actively pursue Ms. L, with a co-worker telling her, "he is in love with you, he has a house, money, he can give you everything in the world if you give him a chance." He continued to promise her "the world," usually through the same intermediary.

"Oh, my God. It was like almost every day, it was something different. It really was," Ms. L testified. "I told him he should go get help. I told him that he should speak to another engineer, and hopefully they would be able to help him. But he just continued on talking to me," she said. "He's near my dad's age."

She also received a number of gifts from Mr. Brust, including a diamond pendant, perfume, Yankee tickets, earrings, and a bottle of wine, and he sent flowers to her home. She was the only member of the custodial staff to get gifts. Although ALJ Joan R. Salzman wrote in her decision that Ms. L should not have accepted the gifts, she noted that Ms. L was a "neophyte in this job and a youngster," and did not want to offend her boss.

Judge Salzman also wrote that she had seen pictures of Ms. L which Mr. Brust had hoarded at his desk, which "tends to confirm [his] obsessive, romantic interest in and pursuit of Ms. L."

'Don't Leave Me Alone With Him'

Eventually, Ms. L started having panic attacks at work and was afraid to be in the same room as Mr. Brust. "It got to the point where I would not ever go into his office by myself. I used to have Anthony [Harris, a fireman] come with me ... I would tell him, just get a drink of water in his office. Just please don't leave me in there by myself," she testified.

Other charges against Mr. Brust concerned his repeated intoxication at work. He would often take a lunch break and return to the school hours later, his eyes watery and his skin red, slurring his speech and unable to stand upright. "You could get drunk off his breath, because that's how strong the smell was," Ms. L testified. When drunk, his advances to Ms. L were more frequent and personal, at one point causing her to run out of the school, hysterical.

Mr. Brust was also found guilty of intimidating Ms. L after she filed a sexual harassment complaint by changing her work hours and shifts, and by repeatedly threatening to fire her, with one of her co-workers calling her to say, "Craig said to tell you to enjoy your last week of work." Mr. Brust never actually followed through on the threat, likely because he was afraid of repercussion, the law judge concluded.

Judge Salzman also found that Mr. Brust committed fraud against the DOE by submitting improper time cards and inflating the number of hours, including overtime, that his workers had put in one month. Her recommendation to Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein of the DOE was that he be terminated from his job immediately.