FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Former NYPD Officer Sheila M. Nunez-Lopez alleges NYPD ignored its own records identifying her as the victim, continued employment consequences after the criminal case was dismissed and sealed, and ultimately ended the career she fought through abuse and homelessness to build.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — September 24, 2026 — Eric Sanders, Esq., The Sanders Firm, P.C. has filed a civil-rights and employment-discrimination action in New York State Supreme Court, Bronx County, on behalf of former New York City Police Department Officer SHEILA M. NUNEZ-LOPEZ against THE CITY OF NEW YORK and individual NYPD officials JESSICA S. TISCH, ERIC PAGAN, DAVID A. WALL, NEIL W. ZUBER, JEFFREY M. HEILIG, ABRAHAM BADILLO, KHALEEQ A. MIDDLETON, PAWEL MASLINSKI, and JOSEPH M. CHARNECO.
The lawsuit alleges that NYPD subjected NUNEZ-LOPEZ to discriminatory employment treatment after an August 24, 2025 domestic incident involving Andres Alejandro Ruiz Blanco, even though the Department’s own records later identified NUNEZ-LOPEZ as the “Victim/Deponent” and Ruiz as the “Suspect.” It further alleges that NYPD continued to impose employment consequences after the criminal charges against NUNEZ-LOPEZ were dismissed and sealed pursuant to CPL 160.50.
The complaint presents a direct institutional contradiction: NYPD treated NUNEZ-LOPEZ as a domestic-violence offender for employment purposes while simultaneously possessing its own official documentation identifying her as a domestic-violence victim.
According to the Verified Complaint, NUNEZ-LOPEZ entered the NYPD Police Academy on April 24, 2024 and graduated in October 2024. She was later assigned to the 30th Precinct, where she performed patrol and Field Training Unit duties, responded to calls for service, interacted with members of the public, and worked substantial overtime while supporting herself and her daughter.
The complaint alleges that during the same period, NUNEZ-LOPEZ was trapped in an increasingly coercive relationship with Ruiz. She alleges that he monitored her schedule, repeatedly called and texted while she was in the Police Academy, demanded information about classmates and friends, appeared at her home and around her vehicle, pressured her to remain in constant communication, and repeatedly resisted her efforts to end the relationship. She further alleges sexual pressure, threats to her career, physical violence, and relentless pressure to marry him.
NUNEZ-LOPEZ alleges that she did not fully report what was happening because she feared professional judgment, retaliation, discipline, damage to her probationary NYPD career, and collateral consequences for her daughter and family. The complaint alleges that this silence itself became part of the problem: rather than understanding why a domestic-violence victim might minimize, conceal, or fail immediately to disclose abuse, NYPD personnel rapidly converted the incident into an Internal Affairs and disciplinary matter.
On August 24, 2025, after an argument inside NUNEZ-LOPEZ’s Bronx residence, Ruiz called 911. NUNEZ-LOPEZ alleges that she did not initially identify herself as an NYPD officer, did not make a cross-complaint, and did not disclose the history of abuse. According to the complaint, Sergeant KHALEEQ A. MIDDLETON supervised the initial response and directed her arrest.
Once NYPD personnel learned that NUNEZ-LOPEZ was a police officer, the response escalated through the Department’s supervisory structure. The complaint alleges that Duty Captain ABRAHAM BADILLO responded, interviewed Ruiz, and conferred with Duty Inspector JEFFREY M. HEILIG; that NUNEZ-LOPEZ was suspended under the authority of Citywide Duty Chief DAVID A. WALL; and that Internal Affairs Bureau Sergeants PAWEL MASLINSKI and JOSEPH M. CHARNECO participated in the Departmental response and processing.
The complaint alleges that while BADILLO conducted a substantive interview of Ruiz, the Department’s report reflects that NUNEZ-LOPEZ was asked only “basic pedigree questions regarding NYPD matters.” According to the pleading, the Department did not document a comparable inquiry into whether NUNEZ-LOPEZ had herself been assaulted or threatened, whether she feared Ruiz, whether she had attempted to end the relationship, or whether Ruiz had threatened her employment. Within hours, her Department identification and firearm were secured, Internal Affairs became involved, and she was suspended.
Five days later, on August 29, 2025, NYPD generated a Domestic Incident Report identifying NUNEZ-LOPEZ as the “Victim/Deponent” and Ruiz as the “Suspect.” The complaint alleges that this was not informal information or a later characterization invented for litigation. It was an official NYPD record generated while the Department’s own disciplinary process was developing.
Nevertheless, on September 3, 2025, Inspector NEIL W. ZUBER signed formal Charges and Specifications accusing NUNEZ-LOPEZ of prohibited conduct arising from the August 24 incident, including an allegation that she assaulted Ruiz and a separate allegation that she failed to identify herself as a member of the NYPD to responding officers. Deputy Chief ERIC PAGAN later expressly concurred with issuance of those charges.
Then the criminal case ended.
On October 14, 2025, the criminal charges arising from the August 24 incident were dismissed and sealed pursuant to CPL 160.50. Yet the complaint alleges that the employment consequences did not end. NUNEZ-LOPEZ remained on modified duty, underwent Department-directed domestic-violence programming, remained under investigation, and continued working for the Department for nearly another year.
According to the complaint, NUNEZ-LOPEZ worked on modified duty at Manhattan Central Booking, where supervisors and coworkers had an extended opportunity to observe her actual workplace performance, conduct, reliability, and work ethic independently of Ruiz’s accusations. The lawsuit alleges that despite that work record, the official Domestic Incident Report identifying her as the victim, and the dismissal and sealing of the criminal case, the Department never meaningfully separated her victim status from the employment consequences generated by the domestic relationship.
In September 2026, NUNEZ-LOPEZ was informed that her termination was imminent. She reported as directed, signed resignation paperwork, and surrendered Department property. The complaint alleges that her employment was nevertheless terminated by order of the Police Commissioner and that Commissioner JESSICA S. TISCH personally participated in and approved the ultimate termination decision.
“This case is about what happens when an institution that is supposed to understand domestic violence refuses to look beyond the first accusation,” said Eric Sanders, Esq., founder of The Sanders Firm, P.C. “NYPD had its own record identifying Sheila Nunez-Lopez as the victim. The criminal charges were dismissed and sealed. Yet the employment machinery kept moving in the same direction. The law does not permit an employer to punish a domestic-violence victim because of circumstances generated by the person who abused, threatened, or controlled her, and it does not permit an employer to continue using a protected arrest or terminated criminal accusation as adverse employment information.”
The lawsuit asserts four causes of action under the New York State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law. It alleges arrest and criminal-accusation discrimination under Executive Law § 296(16) and New York City Administrative Code § 8-107(11)(a). It separately alleges discrimination based upon status as a victim of domestic violence under Executive Law §§ 296(1)(a) and 296(22)(a), as well as discrimination based upon actual or perceived status as a victim of domestic violence under New York City Administrative Code § 8-107(27).
The City Human Rights Law is especially significant to the theory pleaded. Section 8-107(27)(g) expressly addresses employment practices based on the actions of a person who perpetrated acts or threats of violence against an individual. The complaint alleges that defendants treated conduct, accusations, circumstances, and consequences generated by Ruiz’s actions against NUNEZ-LOPEZ as grounds for adverse employment treatment against NUNEZ-LOPEZ herself.
The complaint also asserts aiding-and-abetting liability against the individual defendants based on their alleged direct participation in, authorization of, approval of, implementation of, facilitation of, continuation of, or failure to correct the challenged employment actions. The pleading specifically alleges that the supervisory, managerial, and Internal Affairs defendants knew, should have known through the Departmental investigation, or subsequently became aware that NYPD itself had identified NUNEZ-LOPEZ as a victim of domestic violence, yet failed to meaningfully reassess the employment consequences imposed upon her.
“This is not a claim that every employer must automatically accept one person’s version of a domestic incident,” Sanders said. “It is a claim that managers, supervisors, investigators, and decision-makers cannot close their eyes to evidence in their own possession, ask only the most superficial questions, and then impose career-ending consequences on the very employee their own records identify as the victim. When the employer is the NYPD, the contradiction is even more serious because the Department trains its members to recognize domestic violence, coercive control, delayed disclosure, fear, and the reasons victims do not always make immediate complaints.”
NUNEZ-LOPEZ seeks compensatory damages, back pay, lost benefits, pension and retirement losses, restoration of seniority and other employment benefits, reinstatement or front pay, correction of her employment and personnel records, punitive damages against the individual defendants to the extent permitted under the New York City Human Rights Law, attorneys’ fees, costs, interest, and other appropriate relief.
The lawsuit is captioned SHEILA M. NUNEZ-LOPEZ v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Supreme Court of the State of New York, Bronx County. The pleading was electronically received by NYSCEF on September 24, 2026.
The allegations in the Verified Complaint have not yet been adjudicated, and the defendants will have an opportunity to respond in court.
About The Sanders Firm, P.C.
The Sanders Firm, P.C. is a New York-based law firm focused on civil rights, immigration, employment discrimination, police misconduct, and other high-stakes matters. Its founder and president, Eric Sanders, Esq., is a retired NYPD officer who brings a rare inside perspective to the intersection of government power, public institutions, enforcement discretion, and constitutional accountability.
For more than twenty years, Sanders has counseled thousands of clients and handled complex matters involving police use of force, sexual harassment, retaliation, systemic discrimination, immigration consequences, and related civil-rights violations. He is widely recognized as a leading New York civil-rights attorney and a prominent voice on evidence-based policing, institutional accountability, equal justice, and rights-based immigration advocacy.
Media Contact
Eric Sanders, Esq.
The Sanders Firm, P.C.
30 Wall Street, 8th Floor
New York, New York 10005
(212) 652-2782
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Read the Verified Complaint
