FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Lawsuit Alleges NYPD’s Successive Police Unions Failed to Protect Officer Shatorra J. Foster’s Rights While the Department Continued Prosecuting Her Without Meaningfully Confronting Her Sexual-Misconduct, Victim-Status, and Retaliation Claims
New York, N.Y. — August 26, 2026 — Eric Sanders, Esq., founder of The Sanders Firm, P.C., has filed a new civil-rights action on behalf of NYPD Police Officer SHATORRA J. FOSTER against her successive police labor organizations, the DETECTIVES ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION POLICE DEPARTMENT, CITY OF NEW YORK INC. (“DEA”) and the POLICE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, INC. (“PBA”).
The lawsuit represents another stage in the continuing litigation arising from FOSTER’S allegations against then-Lieutenant TREVLYN O. HEADLEY and the NYPD’s subsequent treatment of FOSTER.
This action, however, presents a distinct legal issue.
FOSTER does not seek to hold DEA or PBA automatically responsible for alleged discrimination or retaliation committed by NYPD management. Instead, she alleges that both unions engaged in their own discriminatory and retaliatory conduct while exercising representational authority over an NYPD disciplinary prosecution that began in December 2024 and remains ongoing.
DEA represented FOSTER while she held the designation of Detective Specialist, including during Department interviews, service of Charges and Specifications, and the proceedings leading to her April 24, 2026 demotion to Police Officer. PBA thereafter became her bargaining representative while the same disciplinary prosecution continued.
According to the complaint, the unions were not outsiders learning of the controversy after the fact. Their knowledge arose through direct participation in FOSTER’S representation.
FOSTER alleges that the disciplinary case cannot be understood without examining the conduct that preceded it.
The complaint alleges that HEADLEY used supervisory rank, workplace access, Department systems, personal information, emotional manipulation, monitoring, and institutional leverage as part of an escalating adult sexual-grooming process directed toward FOSTER. NYPD’s own records, according to the pleading, substantiated an improper November 15, 2023 CPR/CPI inquiry by HEADLEY concerning FOSTER before the alleged March 14, 2024 sexual incident.
The lawsuit relies in part upon Grant Sinnamon’s seven-stage adult sexual-grooming framework as a behavioral model for examining the alleged progression from information gathering and boundary erosion through sexual access and subsequent control. FOSTER does not plead that framework as an independent cause of action. She alleges that it provides a relevant behavioral lens for evaluating conduct that cannot fairly be reduced to disconnected interpersonal events.
FOSTER alleges that the process culminated on March 14, 2024, inside a secured dormitory area at NYPD Headquarters. According to her verified allegations, HEADLEY was on duty and in uniform when she entered the room where FOSTER was sleeping, removed FOSTER’S pants and underwear, pushed her onto the bed, forcibly spread her legs, and licked her vagina, labia, and clitoris for approximately ten minutes.
FOSTER has pleaded that conduct as criminal sexual conduct under New York Penal Law §§ 130.05 and 130.50 and as a gender-motivated act of violence under the New York City Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act.
The union action also places substantial emphasis upon People v. Moreno, 100 A.D.3d 435 (1st Dep’t 2012), lv denied, 20 N.Y.3d 987 (2012).
In Moreno, the Appellate Division affirmed official-misconduct convictions involving NYPD officers who used police-created access, information, keys, and official functions while pursuing sexual relations. The court recognized the prospect of sexual relations as a cognizable “benefit” under Penal Law § 195.00. Moreno received concurrent one-year jail sentences.
FOSTER alleges that Moreno has direct significance because her allegations concern the use of supervisory authority, Department-created access, internal systems, institutional opportunity, and police resources in connection with sexual conduct. She further alleges that those same institutional mechanisms were later weaponized against her after she resisted and distanced herself from the purported relationship.
The disciplinary prosecution against FOSTER began in December 2024.
According to the complaint, NYPD proceeded against her for conduct characterized as stalking, harassment, false reporting, database misuse, misuse of Department resources, and conduct without legitimate purpose. FOSTER alleges that the Department failed to adequately examine whether HEADLEY’S alleged misconduct, supervisory role, and use of Department systems materially affected the meaning, motive, and context of the conduct being prosecuted.
The legal and evidentiary posture changed further on June 27, 2025, when FOSTER filed Verified Counterclaims in Headley v. City of New York, et al., Index No. 155228/2025, Supreme Court, New York County.
Those Verified Counterclaims formally accused HEADLEY of criminal sexual conduct, gender-motivated violence, sexual harassment, coercion, retaliation, hostile work environment, and abuse of supervisory authority.
According to the new complaint, the Special Investigations Unit uploaded FOSTER’S Verified Counterclaims into the Department investigative file on June 29, 2025.
FOSTER therefore alleges that NYPD possessed actual documentary notice that the supervisor whose allegations were being used against her was herself formally accused in a verified judicial pleading of serious sex-based misconduct, retaliation, and abuse of Department authority.
That notice, the complaint alleges, implicated statutory obligations that extended beyond the ordinary processing of disciplinary charges.
Labor Law § 201-g requires employers to maintain procedures for the timely and confidential investigation of sexual-harassment complaints. Labor Law § 27-b imposes workplace-violence prevention obligations upon public employers. Executive Law § 296 prohibits sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. The New York City Human Rights Law independently prohibits discrimination and retaliation and provides broader protections within New York City.
Administrative Code § 8-107(27) also protects employees against discrimination based upon actual or perceived status as victims of specified offenses and provides workplace protections where that status is known or should have been known.
Matter of Reynolds v. Fraser, 5 Misc. 3d 758 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County 2004), further illustrates the importance of considering protected victim status when an employer applies workplace rules to conduct arising from circumstances created by the underlying offense.
FOSTER therefore alleges that NYPD could not continue prosecuting her conduct in isolation. The Department had to investigate the predicate allegations against HEADLEY and determine whether conduct it characterized as stalking, harassment, false reporting, database misuse, or misuse of Department resources instead constituted outcry, reporting, resistance, evidence preservation, documentation, or responsive victim conduct.
FOSTER alleges that NYPD did not meaningfully perform that investigation or reassessment before continuing the disciplinary prosecution.
DEA represented FOSTER throughout this period and during the proceedings leading to her April 24, 2026 demotion from Detective Specialist to Police Officer.
The new lawsuit alleges that DEA therefore had direct knowledge not merely of the disciplinary charges, but also of the verified sexual-misconduct allegations, the statutory protections they implicated, the Department’s investigative obligations, and the unresolved questions concerning HEADLEY’S conduct before FOSTER suffered a career-altering adverse action.
After the demotion, PBA became FOSTER’S bargaining representative.
The factual record then continued to develop.
On May 27, 2026, NYPD disclosed Special Investigations Unit and Prosecutorial Wall materials that, according to FOSTER, undermined any characterization of HEADLEY as merely a neutral complaining witness.
The disclosed materials identified HEADLEY as a subject officer, documented the improper November 15, 2023 CPR/CPI inquiry, and reflected unresolved investigative issues concerning HEADLEY.
Following those disclosures, FOSTER, through counsel, submitted additional complaints through Department channels concerning HEADLEY, the alleged March 14 sexual incident, retaliation, investigative contamination, selective enforcement, and the continuing disciplinary prosecution. IAB created Log No. 2026-18936.
On May 31, 2026, FOSTER commenced a civil-rights action in Supreme Court, Bronx County, challenging what she alleges was NYPD’s continued reliance upon a contaminated disciplinary process after receiving notice of her allegations against HEADLEY.
On June 3, 2026, one day after service of that action, FOSTER alleges that NYPD directed her to report “ASAP” for a purportedly random hair drug test.
She later commenced a second Bronx County civil-rights action on June 24, 2026, challenging that testing directive and related conduct as additional retaliation and selective enforcement.
FOSTER subsequently sought judicial intervention through an Order to Show Cause in the pending Headley litigation concerning the continuation of the disciplinary prosecution and related investigative issues.
While that Order to Show Cause remained pending, another development became significant.
NYPD had separately prosecuted HEADLEY in Department Case No. C-033349 for inappropriate physical contact involving another subordinate female officer.
According to the disciplinary determination, HEADLEY maintained that the physical contact was consensual.
The Department rejected that account.
The disciplinary tribunal identified material inconsistencies in HEADLEY’S explanation, credited the subordinate officer, recognized the inherent power imbalance between a lieutenant and subordinate, and credited the subordinate’s concern that resisting or reporting HEADLEY could result in retaliation.
Police Commissioner JESSICA S. TISCH approved the guilty findings and imposed forty-five vacation days, remedial EEO training, and one year of dismissal probation.
FOSTER alleges that those Department findings directly reinforced issues already central to her own case: HEADLEY’S credibility, supervisory power, invocation of consent, treatment of subordinate female officers, and retaliatory capacity.
The new lawsuit alleges that DEA and PBA nevertheless failed to meaningfully integrate those facts and legal principles into FOSTER’S representation.
“This case is not about whether a union can guarantee a particular disciplinary result,” said Eric Sanders. “It is about whether a police union can disregard legal defenses and evidence that go directly to gender, victim status, retaliation, supervisory coercion, and the credibility of the person whose accusations helped drive the disciplinary process.”
Sanders continued: “DEA and PBA knew what Foster was alleging. They knew about the Department’s records. They knew that the case involved far more than an ordinary disciplinary dispute. They were required to represent her without discrimination or retaliation and to confront the legal and evidentiary issues actually presented.”
The complaint alleges that DEA and PBA effectively fell into the same institutional analytical failure attributed to NYPD: evaluating how FOSTER behaved rather than first examining why she behaved as alleged and whether her actions were connected to sexual misconduct, victim status, outcry, resistance, reporting, evidence preservation, or retaliation.
FOSTER alleges that distinction is particularly important where a subordinate officer accuses a superior of using institutional authority and Department mechanisms to obtain access, exercise control, and later redirect investigative scrutiny toward the subordinate.
The lawsuit asserts four causes of action: discrimination and retaliation under the New York State Human Rights Law and discrimination and retaliation under the New York City Human Rights Law.
The discrimination claims allege that DEA and PBA breached their duty of fair representation and that gender-based animus was a motivating factor in that breach.
FOSTER alleges that DEA and PBA failed to provide materially comparable representational protection despite substantial evidence and legal authority directly connected to her allegations as a woman asserting sex-based workplace misconduct and victim status.
The retaliation claims are separately based upon FOSTER’S repeated protected activity and the unions’ alleged conduct after acquiring knowledge of that activity.
Her protected activity expanded over time through verified judicial counterclaims, Department complaints, two Bronx County civil-rights actions, and an Order to Show Cause challenging the continuing disciplinary prosecution.
FOSTER alleges that the deficiencies in union representation persisted as that protected activity expanded and as additional evidence concerning HEADLEY became available.
The lawsuit does not contend that DEA or PBA automatically became liable because NYPD allegedly discriminated or retaliated against FOSTER. Nor does it allege that either union was required to control NYPD or guarantee dismissal of disciplinary charges.
The case focuses on the unions’ own conduct while exercising their representational authority.
FOSTER alleges that DEA and PBA failed to meaningfully challenge the Department’s refusal to investigate the predicate sexual-misconduct allegations, failed to adequately invoke the significance of People v. Moreno, failed to press the victim-status protections reflected in Administrative Code § 8-107(27) and Reynolds, failed to meaningfully address the Department’s statutory investigative obligations, and failed to use the developing evidence concerning HEADLEY’S credibility and use of institutional authority in FOSTER’S defense.
“The larger issue is institutional accountability,” Sanders said. “An employer and a labor organization occupy different legal roles, but both are governed by law. A union cannot simply reproduce management’s assumptions about a woman alleging sexual misconduct and then insulate that conduct by calling it strategy. When gender and protected civil-rights activity influence the representation itself, the Human Rights Laws come into play.”
FOSTER seeks compensatory damages, declaratory relief, injunctive relief prohibiting discriminatory and retaliatory representation, attorneys’ fees and costs, punitive damages where legally recoverable, and other relief authorized by law.
The allegations against DEA and PBA have not yet been adjudicated, and both organizations 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
