The 40-year veteran of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office faced brutal discrimination and retaliation at work while caring for his sick elderly parents, the new lawsuit alleges.
Joan Davila, the key extradition office head of the demoted office, suffered from years of “discrimination, retaliation and harassment of caretakers.”
When her official complaints were ignored, Davila tried to seek help from the higher ones in the office, but everyone ignored her plea, she said.
“I have no empathy,” Davila said.
“This combination is for the care of my parents,” she said of the alleged abuse she suffered.
Her attorney, John Scola, added: “When the DA’s office violates the anti-discrimination law, it betrays the very principle it is vowed to support — and it must be accountable.”
Officials from the DA’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The city’s legal department declined to comment on the pending lawsuit filed last week with the Manhattan Supreme Court.
Davila grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and said she began her career in DA’s office in 1984 thanks to encouragement from a high school coaching counselor.
As a store clerk, then paralegal, Davila eventually oversaw the DA’s handover office.
But her parents moved to Florida when their father retired after working for many years at a Brooklyn jewelry and Christmas ornament factory, and her parents left, she said, and needed care.
Davila said retaliation against her began in 2019 when she first used paid family leave to care for her parents. When she returned to work, she said she was told she couldn’t get any more overtime and led her to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity office.
Things escalated in early 2023 when she returned from three months of paid family leave to find the extradition position given to employees hired when she was gone, her lawsuit allegedly.
“I hadn’t got anything back,” she told the Post. “I’m devastated.”
She said, “It’s like if you removed the officer’s revolver and put it on a desk mission. …I definitely loved what I did.”
She said she was offered a new role as head administrator for the courts. However, when her father again needed help in 2024, her new supervisor began retaliating against her, she said.
The unstable deadlines and instructions were part of retaliation “like sabotage.”
Soon, her overtime, which was only a few hours per pay period, had been restored again, but was denied again.
“I felt it was retaliation,” Davila said. “It’s happening to me again.”
Her lawsuit alleges that her supervisor, Siobang Kurt, explained the move to her by telling her, “I had to do your job while you were away.”
Davila said meetings between her union and the office’s chief operating officer had not gone anywhere.
The worker also said the message sent to Dalvin Bragg explaining that her situation would not move the needle.
“One of my OEEO complaints didn’t move forward,” Davila said. “No one ever did anything.”
Davila said that “it struck my office” and that Kurt was “to tear the plaintiffs to take leave” days after filing another complaint in February.
Davila said she began crying and said she was on leave so she could look after her father, who died a month ago due to dementia, diabetes and heart problems.
Davila’s mother passed away the previous year.
Carti said “I don’t understand why you keep referring to your father,” and Davira added, “I’m probably just doing this to file a lawsuit,” accusing her of recording the meeting, the lawsuit allegedly.
The meeting ended with a threat of demobilization, Davila argued.
Later, when the workers were appointments of doctors in March due to stress, she discovered that her health insurance had suddenly been cancelled – and she missed two paychecks.
Her insurance company denied that they did, despite telling her that only the DA’s office could cancel her coverage, according to the lawsuit.
It took nearly two weeks to revive the lawsuit, the lawsuit alleged.
Davila claims that the retaliation has worsened, but rejects her job request and insists on performing tasks that are usually delegated to paralegals and analysts working for her.
“This would have happened below [former DA Robert] Morgenthau? Probably not,” Davila said. “The employees were important for him.”
