Former Police Officer Sues the City for $2M
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A former police officer in a municipal lab that tests for AIDS, anthrax, and other bio-dangers is suing the city for $2 million, saying his bosses retaliated against him for complaining about the handling of hazardous materials.
Milford Gangadeen, formerly assigned to the Public Health Laboratories in Manhattan, says in court papers his supervisors viewed him “as a nuisance and a potential public relations problem,” and had him transferred.
Mr. Gangadeen, 28, said the lab, part of the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, violated safety rules while “working with some of the most hazardous and harmful biological materials known to man.”
The safety breaches not only put Mr. Gangadeen in danger of contracting a fatal disease, but they also put “everyone in the immediate New York City area in grave danger,” according to court papers.
A spokeswoman for the Health Department, Sara Markt, said in an e-mail that several disciplinary charges are pending against Mr. Gangadeen, and none have to do with his complaint of unsafe conditions.
She said Mr. Gangadeen was previously suspended from the department because he threatened a supervisor, and he currently faces several charges including violating security rules, unauthorized use of city equipment, and unauthorized absences from work. He was transferred to another health department facility while department charges were pending.
Mr. Gangadeen claims his supervisors ignored his warnings about safety, and instead began an effort to fire him from his $40,000-plus job for unfounded reasons.
In May 2006, about three months after the lab received suspected anthrax samples, Mr. Gangadeen got a rash on his right leg, court papers say. He believes the rash was caused by anthrax, and he may have been exposed when FBI agents combined 21 samples into four — without decontaminating the samples — in an attempt to reduce paperwork, according to court papers. A doctor gave him the maximum prescription of CIPRO (ciprofloxacin), a powerful antibiotic used to treat people exposed to anthrax. Mr. Gangadeen’s lawyer, Walker G. Harman, said yesterday two other lab workers support his client’s claims and might join the lawsuit against the city. Mr. Harman said his client is accused of improperly taking interior photos of the lab to support his complaints. The trial on those charges is scheduled for November 18.