Rensselaer County to pay $300K to Lt. James Karam in discrimination case
By Robert Gavin
Times Union
Rensselaer County will pay a longtime internal affairs officer $300,000 to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit that accused former Sheriff Jack Mahar of retaliation and Mahar’s successor, Patrick Russo, of making a racial slur.
The settlement was finalized in a conference Tuesday before Judge Mae D’Agostino in U.S. District Court, where the legal action brought by Lt. James Karam was initially scheduled for trial this week.
The Times Union reported Tuesday that attorneys reached a settlement in a phone conference Friday — two days after the judge issued a ruling that would have allowed jurors to hear Russo’s remark. In 2013, then-Undersheriff Russo told Karam, a Lebanese-American, that he “should shave his goatee or he would be put back on the terrorist watch list.”
John W. Bailey, an attorney representing the county, said Russo’s remark had no impact on the decision to settle. He said the case was winnable but if the county lost, it faced possible exposure to more than $1 million in legal fees.
“(The settlement) protects the county from severe financial consequences,” Bailey said outside court, joined by County Attorney Stephen Pechenik. “Frankly the offer was, in my opinion, a no-brainer.”
Karam, 47, a native of Troy, filed the suit in August 2013, charging that he was denied sick leave and state disability benefits because of his ethnicity. Karam alleged Maher retaliated against him after he spoke with the sheriff’s department attorney, Bryan Goldberger, and told him his suspicions that Mahar was covering up allegations that sheriff’s department members had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act by looking over private medical records of department personnel at Samaritan Hospital.
Karam had to leave work in August 2012 after he began experiencing temporomandibular joint pain. In October 2012, he applied for benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression due to work-related stress, but the benefits did not arrive until September 2013.
On Tuesday, A.J. Bosman, the attorney for Karam, said her client went a year without any salary or disability benefits — including for six months after he was cleared for the payments by the county.
Bosman said the settlement “vindicates the rights of law enforcement officers to receive their benefits as mandated by law and not leaving someone at the mercy of discriminatory or retaliatory animus.”
Karam was entitled to the disability under Section 207-C of the state General Municipal Law, which provides the benefits for law enforcement officers.
Under the settlement Karam will continue to receive the benefits as long as he is legally eligible.
“This statute is intended to protect law enforcement officers, not to serve as a vehicle to injure them,” Bosman said, joined by Karam and the officer’s wife, Lisa.
In January, the judge dismissed Karam’s legal claims against several other county officials, including Russo. She allowed the case against Mahar and the county to proceed.
Karam, hired as a Rensselaer County jail officer in 1988, became head of the sheriff’s department internal affairs efforts in 2003, the year Mahar was elected. Karam alleged in court papers that Russo had “made repeated reference to (Karam’s) ancestry during staff meetings, intentionally and/or negligently subjecting plaintiff to ridicule, disparagement, degradation, and humiliation.”
Court transcripts of a 2015 deposition show Russo acknowledged he made the “watch list” remark, but argued it was “normal bantering” at their job.
“Just to maybe lighten the mood up,” Russo testified. “I hadn’t seen him with a beard before and, you know, I knew he was coming in to talk about 207-C. I mean, I knew he was probably stressed a little bit and being my relationship with him … since he was a kid, you know, I didn’t see anything wrong with that.”
Russo denied having racial bias. He noted his wife is Lebanese.
“I have probably as many Lebanese friends as Jim Karam has. So, therefore, I wouldn’t be derogatory because of his heritage toward Jimmy,” Russo testified. County lawyers tried to keep the “watch list” remark from trial, but D’Agostino allowed it. She ruled in her May 25 decision that it “may be used to show that the county of Rensselaer had a custom and policy of allowing its employees to act in a racially discriminatory manner.”
Source: www.timesunion.com