The New York City Board of Elections rejected the government integrity watchdog’s recommendation to remove its executive director following an investigation that found he had repeatedly subjected two female staffers to racially biased and sexually inappropriate comments.
The board instead said it would suspend Executive Director Michael Ryan for three weeks without pay, require him to take “sensitivity training” and put him on probation for a year.
The board’s Dec. 16 letter notifying the city Department of Investigation (DOI) of the lesser punishment was signed by BOE President Rodney Pepe-Souvenir, who previously worked as associate director for diversity and compliance at the City University of New York (CUNY) and as the executive director for non-discrimination the Juilliard School. She was the Title IX coordinator at both, responsible for fielding complaints of gender-based discrimination.
On Wednesday Pepe-Souvenir did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment. She was nominated to the position by Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, the leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Committee.
On Tuesday THE CITY reported on DOI’s investigation of Ryan, and on Wednesday DOI released a sanitized version of its findings, describing Ryan’s troubling interactions with the two BOE staffers in general terms.
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber stood by her agency’s recommendation to either remove Ryan or ask him to resign. The board did neither.
“DOI took the unusual step of sharing its view that the conduct by the BOE’s executive director was egregious enough to warrant either termination or resignation in lieu of termination,” Strauber stated Wednesday. “That remains our position.”
The DOI report released Wednesday referenced what it described as a “confidential” report DOI had previously released privately only to the 10 BOE commissioners, BOE lawyers, and the individuals named in it, requesting that the recipients not make that document public.
THE CITY obtained that original report, which was sent to BOE in November and reached specific conclusions and made detailed recommendations, including the suggestion to fire Ryan.
In response to the official report, Betsy Gotbaum, executive director of the good-government group Citizens Union, said it “exposes not only the harassment of employees and creation of a hostile work environment, but also the Board of Elections’ failure to uphold even the most basic standards of accountability and workplace protections.”
She added: “The BOE, structured to answer solely to party bosses rather than the public it serves, is an institution plagued by patronage. This enables misconduct at the highest levels and perpetuates a culture that fails both its employees and New York City’s voters.”
‘Half Your Age Plus Seven’
The “confidential” report detailed Ryan’s interactions with a female Hispanic staffer in which she said he’d made several sexually suggestive statements to her and in front of her, including a comment about her having dimples and then an attempt to touch her face while standing over her in her office.
The staffer also recounted Ryan coming into her office and noticing a container of Vaseline on her desk, stating “rosey lips” and puckering his lips. In another interaction, she says, Ryan stated that if “a young woman wants me, I know why she wants me” and discussed with another male BOE employee, Michael Corbett, “how young is too young” for an older man to date a younger woman.
Corbett responded “half your age plus seven,” the DOI report stated. In response to DOI’s findings, the BOE suspended Corbett for one week without pay and ordered him to take sensitivity training.
DOI also found Ryan made ethnically biased comments to a second female staffer who is from India, including asking her “What kind of Indian are you?” and telling her that Indians are “non-confrontational.”
On another occasion the staffer recalled Ryan telling a story about his young son thinking a bearded Sikh gas station attendant was Santa Claus to a visiting Department of Justice lawyer who was Sikh. The BOE staffer said she was “mortified” by Ryan’s comments.
On Wednesday the BOE issued a statement asserting that Ryan was suspended without pay starting Dec. 9, resulting in 15 days of lost wages. The statement did not address DOI’s recommendation to terminate him or explain why the board rejected that option.
On Tuesday Ryan did not respond to THE CITY’s questions about DOI’s finding, but in the BOE statement released Wednesday, Ryan was sorry not sorry.
“I want to express my deepest apologies to my family, my colleagues and to anyone that I unintentionally offended,” Ryan stated. “While I dispute these allegations and disagree with the report’s conclusion, I accept the determination of the Commissioners in the best interests of the agency.”
Additional reporting by Gwynne Hogan.
