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Media specialist Henry Hernandez of Clifton contends his pay was docked, medical issues that put him at risk during COVID were ignored and he was isolated "both socially and professionally" following two refusals.
Hernandez claims in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Paterson that he'd been considered an "exemplary employee" until Valdes asked him to process a disc of photos that contained images of the prosecutor and her husband in "various stages of undress."
Handing the disc back to her, Hernandez told the prosecutor that he couldn't process the disc because it was "appropriate for him to view these materials," the lawsuit says.
The same thing happened again four years later, the suit claims. Valdes even admitted that a disc she handed Hernandez for processing held images that would be considered "inappropriate in a work environment," it alleges.
Hernandez says he refused again and, from that point on, was "treated differently," with Valdes and others in the office acting toward him "in a much colder manner than before," the suit claims.
Diabetes, high blood pressure and heart trouble put him at risk amid the COVID pandemic, he said, so he requested plastic desk barriers for his desk. The requests were ignored until he filed a grievance through his union, Hernandez said.
Rather than work from home, Hernandez was required to come to the office, the suit claims. Visitors were prohibited, it says.
He also wasn't being paid for extra weekend hours and was docked an hour a day based on a "generic assumption" that he was handling personal matters on the taxpayers' dime, the lawsuit claims.
A former assistant U.S. attorney and state deputy attorney general, Valdes became the first Latina county prosecutor in the state, the first female prosecutor in the county and the first Dominican lead prosecutor in the entire country when the state Legislature approved her appointment by then-Gov. Jon Corzine in 2009.
She hasn't commented on the lawsuit, which accuses her and Detective Chief Christopher Drelich of deliberately causing Hernandez emotional distress while violating the state's Conscientious Employee Protection Act and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
Hernandez is seeking unspecified punitive damages, as well as the costs of interest, attorneys' fees and other relief.
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