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The town Correction Division has suspended a prime official and is searching for to fireplace him over allegations that he made inappropriate feedback to a feminine subordinate, The Metropolis Reporter has realized.
Selwyn Fergus, 66, who was promoted to affiliate commissioner simply final month, allegedly made inappropriate remarks to the worker and bragged about his shut ties to Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards, in line with a number of jail sources.
Now, his official electronic mail deal with seems to have been shut off.
Fergus and Richards have a protracted historical past.
The 2 met within the third grade, Fergus instructed the New Yorker journal; each frolicked behind bars on Rikers Island within the late Eighties and later every labored at The Fortune Society, town’s largest nonprofit serving previously incarcerated folks.
The allegations turned public final week throughout a Board of Correction listening to, when activist Victoria Phillips instructed the oversight board that somebody had contacted her a few senior correction official accused of “sexual issues” involving folks near the commissioner.
Phillips didn’t establish Fergus.
“The explanation it got here to me is as a result of folks would not have religion and other people need to guarantee that this too just isn’t swept beneath the rug,” she testified on the finish of the almost three-hour listening to.
After the assembly, three Correction Division sources instructed The Metropolis Reporter that Phillips was referring to Fergus.
“I haven’t seen him round for a number of weeks,” one jail insider mentioned.
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Patrick Gallahue, the Correction Division’s chief spokesperson, declined to debate the matter.
“The Division doesn’t touch upon personnel issues,” he mentioned.
It’s unclear what Fergus allegedly instructed the worker or who’s main the investigation. A spokesperson for town Division of Investigation declined remark.
Fergus didn’t reply to calls, emails, and texts.
The allegations come as Richards final month was slammed by a court-appointed federal monitor who oversees elements of the division’s operations for instructing his prime workers to evade any casual communications together with his crew.
In a crucial letter to federal Choose Laura Taylor Swain, monitor Steve Martin mentioned latest steps taken by Commissioner Richards and his management crew to make sure they had been knowledgeable of all workers communications with the Martin had been “among the many most particular, direct, and consequential actions” he had seen in additional than a decade of monitoring the division.
Martin mentioned Richards — who was appointed to steer town’s jails by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — instructed his management crew to not share concepts or methods to the monitor or to the court-appointed Rikers Island remediation supervisor with out first telling the commissioner.
As for Fergus, he was first employed by the Correction Division as the executive director of social companies in December 2021, in line with a discover within the official Metropolis File.
In that position, he was in control of the division’s push to register extra detainees to vote, The Marshall Venture reported in November 2022.
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Commissioner Richards promoted Fergus to affiliate commissioner simply final month, in line with an inside division announcement obtained by The Metropolis Reporter.
He was anticipated to “proceed to report on to the commissioner,” the announcement mentioned.
The job entailed overseeing the division’s so-called CARE unit, which supplies disaster response to workers injured on the job and different companies. He was additionally anticipated to steer the company’s chaplain crew and ceremonial models, the memo mentioned.
Most not too long ago, he served as a senior advisor to the commissioner, the place he earned $150,000 final yr, in line with SeeThroughNY, a web site which tracks the pay of municipal staff.
