A federal jury yesterday rejected an NYPD lieutenant’s claims that she was sexually harassed on the job and that her Brooklyn narcotics unit was like a “frat house,” where male investigators guzzled beer and watched hard-core porn.
“Michele Jarman-Brown just didn’t have credible evidence,” a 32-year-old female juror from Brooklyn said of the lieutenant’s claim – although the jury did award her retired cop husband a nominal $2 because they found a high-ranking officer had retaliated against him for sticking up for his wife.
Jarman-Brown told the Brooklyn federal jury she had reached the breaking point 1 ½ years into her assignment with the special unit when a semen-stained copy of Hustler magazine turned up in her desk drawer in August 1997.
But defense lawyer Patricia Miller, who represented the city and three cops accused of misconduct, convinced the jury that Jarman-Brown made up her allegations in a desperate bid to hold onto her undercover job.
“She saw that she was going to be transferred out of a case that was going to be a star case for her,” a 28-year-old female member of the jury from Queens said.
After 1 ½ days of deliberations, the jury of six men and four women found Jarman-Brown was not subjected to a hostile work environment.
Three women on the panel said they didn’t believe the Hustler magazine had semen on it or that it was maliciously left in her desk.
Jarman-Brown showed no reaction as the jury announced its verdict, but her husband, retired Capt. Robert Brown, held his head in his hands and shook it in apparent disbelief.
“We’re obviously disappointed,” said the couple’s attorney, Matthew Brinckerhoff. “We plan to appeal.”
The couple could take little consolation from the jury’s finding for Brown that he had been retaliated against by the commanding officer of Brooklyn South narcotics, Arthur Storch.
The jury awarded Brown a nominal $1 for lost wages, and another $1 for pain and suffering. They cleared Storch’s co-defendants, Lt. Joseph Falco and Capt. Charles Alifano, of any wrongdoing.