Captain Brian Flynn appears inset, left, against a mural at the NYPD’s 50th Precinct. On the right is a passage from a lawsuit in April 2023. (New York City Police Department; Manhattan Supreme Court)
A captain with the NYPD is being sued by a female detective for allegedly sending her pictures of his penis and engaging in other forms of sexual harassment over 18 months.
Captain Brian Flynn was transferred to the NYPD’s 50th Precinct in the Bronx in April 2021, the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court says. Soon after his transfer, “he began sending text messages and making in real-time, sexually charged comments” to Detective Michelle Almanzar, the 10-page filing claims.
“Flynn continued to send sexually inappropriate text messages, including pictures of his penis and napkins with ejaculate on it, which appeared to be taken in his office at the 50th precinct to [Almanzar] on her personal cell phone,” the lawsuit continues.
Ultimately, Flynn sent the detective over 45 sexually explicit or inappropriate photos and messages, Almanzar’s lawyer Leslee Schwartz told Fox News.
“I have a trove of pictures and texts,” the plaintiff’s attorney said. “I sent them 45 of them, and that’s not even all of it.”
The filing also claims that, in addition to the pictures of his “penis and ejaculate,” Flynn repeatedly asked the detective to “go out” with him and to send him pictures of herself.
Almanzar, in turn, tried to placate her sexual harasser, the lawsuit says, by doing “her best to ignore and/or redirect his attention, but that only seemed to make him more aggressive toward her.”
After turning him down, the lawsuit says, the detective was repeatedly retaliated against by the captain.
“Anytime [Almanzar] tried to block him on her cellphone or told him to stop, he reacted in a negative fashion-making her remain in the station to redo reports,” the lawsuit alleges. “He would also deny her requests for personal time for no reason other than she would not allow him to continually harass her.”
For a while, the detective’s filing says, she tried to mend the tensions brought on by her superior’s advances and her denials by pretending to be more agreeable to the “relentless” harassment.
“[Almanzar] would often permit him to send her sexually explicit texts because when she tried to get him to stop, not only did she suffer, but he would often take his frustration out on her work partner as well as her team,” the filing says.
But, amid all that, the detective says, she never sought out or accepted any preferential treatment from Flynn – including during “one very specific instance” wherein the captain allegedly sent Almanzar the following text: “I was going to give you a Commander’s Day if you just gave me your panties.”
Over time, the lawsuit says, Almanzar developed “severe anxiety whenever she had to go near his office, which was directly in line with the restroom,” and that her anxiety got so bad “that she refused to even go to the restroom alone.”
The detective says she was forced to endure the captain’s behavior for over a year, despite telling him on numerous occasions that she was married and not interested in him. Finally, the lawsuit says, in November 2022, “after being denied a day off because she had blocked Defendant Captain Flynn and informed him she would not communicate with him, nor allow him to continue to harass her,” Almanzar made a formal report.
The lawsuit alleges that other officers would try to get her to “just keep him happy,” that all members of Flynn’s “team” were aware of the harassment, and that there was a general air of defending the captain’s actions within the 50th Precinct – and minimizing his behavior throughout the broader NYPD.
From the lawsuit at length:
On or about January 13, 2023, the day following Plaintiff’s meeting with [Internal Affairs], she arrived at the 50th precinct to find one of the Sergeants yelling at her, in front of several other detectives and officers, “You couldn’t just keep him happy, now look, we are all under the microscope.”
Stunned by his words, Plaintiff questioned why a mandated reported [sic] had not reported the activity himself, she was told, “We figured you liked it.”
Since November 2022, when Plaintiff first advised Defendant NYPD of Defendant Captain Flynn’s misbehavior, Plaintiff has been kept completely away from any investigation, except to learn “through the grapevine” that Defendant Captain Flynn was facing discipline for something completely unrelated to her complaints.
Defendants NYPD and NYC have taken no action to assure that Defendant Flynn does not harass any other female employee.
“The Department does not tolerate sexual harassment and is committed to respectful work environments for our diverse workforce,” the NYPD said in a statement provided to multiple media outlets regarding the lawsuit. “The NYPD thoroughly investigates all complaints it receives and offers several reporting options for NYPD employees, including anonymously.”
Read the full filing below:
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