Police officer Veronica Schultz is suing her former boss, Deputy Chief Michael Blake
A married NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau chief carried on multiple affairs with female subordinates at a Queens precinct while sexually terrorizing a female cop who rejected his sleazy overtures, The Post has learned.
Police Officer Veronica Schultz says her former boss, Deputy Chief Michael Blake, now the executive officer of the counterterrorism division, engaged in simultaneous affairs with "numerous" women subordinates four years ago, when he was a captain and commanding officer of the 103 Precinct, where she still works.
"His behavior was outrageous in the precinct," Schultz told The Post.
Blake, a 24-year NYPD veteran and father of three — who is in charge of security arrangements for terrorists facing trial for their roles in the 9/11 attacks — was accused of being a serial philanderer in an amended Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit filed last week.
Schultz charges in her lawsuit that she became the target of an escalating series of indignities over several years.
Blake, 49, allegedly called her "sexy" and told her she had "kissable lips" and "a nice a--." He also rubbed the back of her neck while drunk at a Brooklyn awards ceremony and grabbed her from behind, drink in hand, and grinded against her, the papers claim.
She said Blake displayed his attraction towards her when she transferred to the precinct in the fall of 2006, telling her at their first meeting in his office, "I cannot look at you in the eyes."
The lawsuit contends that she paid no mind to his flirtatious behavior at first, but she grew more concerned when she realized that Blake was engaged in affairs with "numerous" women cops — a situation that created a pecking order.
He would "bestow enhanced job benefits" on women cops he was sleeping with, such as "choice assignments, overtime and the like" — while she increasingly became the target of unwanted attention from him and other male supervisors that she rejected.
Blake’s "management structure" led him — and other male supervisors — to treat minority female cops as "as mere ‘chattel’ while jockeying for position to satisfy their thirst for the next sexual conquest," the lawsuit states.
Eric Sanders, Schultz’ attorney, insisted the case would focus on Blake’s bawdy behavior.
"We have identified at least four police officers who were under his command with whom he had close personal relationships," he said.
Speaking on Blake’s behalf, Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, denied the charges.
"The allegations against Chief Blake are outrageous and false. Chief Blake is a consummate professional who garners the respect of his subordinates and peers," Schultz claimed in the lawsuit that her problems instensified following her April 2007 appointment as a precinct youth officer, where she began working for a sergeant whose "aggressive" romantic overtures she repeatedly rebuffed.
She complainted to Blake that the sergeant was also hitting on underage girls that were part of the youth program, but failed to take any action against the sergeant.
She wound up losing her youth officer position and endured various acts of workplace retribution, such as the imposition of arrest quotas, the lawsuit claims.
In May 2007, she appeared in a talent show with other cops and a waldrobe malfunction caused her thong underwear to be exposed.
That led the sergeant who had been sexually harassing her to later play a videotape of the embarrassing incdent at the stationhouse for other male cops, causing her to flee the room in tears, the lawsuit states.
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