Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
A New Jersey police chief, Robert Farley, is facing multiple severe accusations from officers within his own department. Legal documents have revealed disturbing details, including claims that Farley engaged in misconduct that created a hostile work environment.
Among the most shocking allegations, Farley is accused of spiking the department's coffee pot with substances like Viagra and Adderall, causing significant distress among his colleagues.
The accusations don't stop there. Farley allegedly engaged in physical harassment, including inserting a hypodermic needle into an officer’s body, which resulted in a painful injury.
Michael F. Derin claimed that after Farley became chief, the pranks started escalating, including one in August 2024 when Farley chased him around the office and allegedly stabbed him with a hypodermic needle.
When Derin protested, Farley reportedly said, "I don't know how to take a joke." Derin stated this marked the start of a hostile work environment, with Farley allegedly shaving body hair on officers’ property and food and scraping fluids from his underwear onto people in his office.
Officers report feeling increasingly unsafe and uncomfortable working under his leadership, raising serious concerns about the atmosphere within the police force.
Inhumane Acts and Defecation in the Office
Further allegations against Chief Farley detail unthinkable behavior. Officers claim that Farley defecated on the office floors, including in spaces where his staff worked.
This bizarre and disturbing act allegedly contributed to a degrading and unhealthy atmosphere within the police department. The defecation incidents, combined with other claims of harassment, have left many questioning Farley’s ability to lead.
As a result of these disturbing acts, officers reportedly felt psychologically and physically harmed, creating a toxic work environment that led to further retaliatory behavior. These actions are now the center of legal disputes and investigations into Farley’s leadership.
Food Tampering and Inappropriate Behavior
In addition to the allegations of abuse, Chief Farley is also accused of tampering with his subordinates’ food.
Court documents claim that Farley placed hot peppers into officers' meals and heated them in the office microwave, causing discomfort and illness. These claims further illustrate the extent of the hostile work environment that officers were subjected to under his leadership.
Farley’s actions are being described as part of a broader pattern of retaliation and personal harassment. His behavior has drawn significant criticism from those within the department, who feel his conduct not only put them in physical danger but also violated their basic rights to work in a safe and respectful environment.
Personal Harassment and Inappropriate Gifts
Chief Farley is also accused of sending inappropriate gifts to officers, including sex toys and gay pride flags. These gifts, which were allegedly delivered to officers’ homes, have caused immense personal embarrassment and humiliation for those involved.
The allegations point to a disturbing pattern of personal harassment that extended far beyond the workplace, affecting officers’ private lives.
The inappropriate nature of these gifts is seen as a tactic of intimidation, adding to the ongoing pattern of misconduct that has led to a loss of trust within the department. Officers now face the challenge of dealing with the emotional and professional fallout from these deeply troubling allegations.
The allegations against Chief Robert Farley have raised serious concerns of workplace harassment, abuse, and misconduct within the North Bergen Police Department.
With the case now referred to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, it could spark a broader discussion on police practices and how officers are treated in New Jersey. The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office has acknowledged the allegations and directed all inquiries to the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.
Big data has infiltrated (and, for the most part, improved) almost every industry, but in the police force, it’s resulted in an unexpected consequence: an uptick in Injured on Duty (IOD) retaliation cases. At the Los Angeles Police Department, captains are grilled by their superiors every month and must explain data collected through a tracking system called CompStat. When the numbers show that too many officers have taken IOD leave or sick time, captains and supervisors get flack —and often retaliate against their officers as a result.
“IOD retaliation lawsuits were almost nonexistent 10 years ago, before the LAPD relied on CompStat to review its captains and supervisors. Now, officers are being punished for taking time they’re entitled to, and they’re taking legal action,” said Matthew McNicholas, Partner at McNicholas & McNicholas, a Los Angeles-based plaintiff’s trial law firm. “These type of retaliation lawsuits account for 30% of the cases I see now.”
He discusses in more detail to why IOD cases have increased and why CompStat is part of the reason behind this increase.
What do you think are common reasons to why IOD cases have increased over the past ten years?
Two reasons. First, the volume of IOD cases has increased because of the workplace stress created by management when dealing with internal employment issues. This leads to legal actions such as those I handle. Second, the duration of the IOD cases has increased for the same reasons. The moral is so low that it affects the health of the employees and their ability to recover.
What employment rights are people in high-pressured job roles often unaware about?
Within the LAPD, the answer is none. There is extensive training on employee rights under department policy and state law. Remember also, this is a “promote from within” organisation. When you become Captain, you’ve been in the lower ranks for the previous 10-20 years. So, you have had the training as the person protected by the rights as well. This leads to a conclusion that they often don’t really care.
What do you think should be the first course of action for officers that are considering seeking legal action?
Contacting their union to see if the issue can be worked out internally. If that does not succeed, meet with a lawyer that explains both the potential positives and perils of litigation. Employment litigation is very difficult on the employee. Before I will ever accept a case and recommend full-blown litigation, I make sure the client understands all the negatives first. More often than not, I tell potential clients that while they have a proper legal claim, it’s not worth it to their health or their family.
Why are high-pressure environments that emphasize strict quotas and goals breeding grounds for retaliation and employment lawsuits?
The goals and quotas are measures by which the managers are being evaluated. They need to make their numbers. When they fail to make their numbers, they face their own discipline. It is a top-down issue set by the entity at issue, whether you’re dealing with sales quotas or ticket quotas, it’s just that ticket quotas violate the law and led to bad things.
In what ways are big data software, such as CompStat, are the cause of such an increase of cases?
Things like CompStat allow, and actually cause, the LAPD to closely monitor stats that deal with crime, such as the number of burglaries, rapes, murders and assaults in a given month. Such data can be helpful when viewing long-term trends in society. However, what motivates murder, for instance, is not in the control of the police department. If murders go up 100% from one month to the next, it is not because the police did something wrong. Such crimes are driven by social issues beyond police control, like a flair-up in friction between opposing gangs. Thus, the existence of such stats wrongly leads police departments to think they can change crime through different actions. Further, CompStat includes data on the sick time people use and the time people are off for injuries. This is also data that causes the department to think they can change behaviour through actions – and what they do is clamp down on people who are sick and injured. This leads to a myriad of violations and lawsuits.
In what other ways have CompStat and other data-tracking tools impacted workplaces and employment law?
To use medicine as an example, doctors always say, “You don’t treat the test result, you treat the patient.” Meaning, just because a test indicates something doesn’t dictate, by itself, the course of treatment. You have to take the patient as a whole. So, when business relies too heavily on the data, i.e., the test results, they are not working with the employees, they are “treating” the data results. This leads to poor working environments and lawsuits.
Can you think of changes to regulations Los Angeles could make to ensure problems that data-tracking tools are reduced?
The change would not come from regulations, but rather, through an entire change of mindset. When the Captains go to CompStat and have to answer questions about why crimes have gone up, they are also required to answer questions about why injuries and illnesses have gone up, and then instructed to lower such things. Well, such a directive leads to violations of law because the Captains go back to their divisions and crack-down on illnesses as if they were crimes. This is the incentive system set-up by the LAPD, and is a recipe for disaster.
From your experience, do you think those working in the police departments are taken seriously, in regard to their employment rights during on duty injuries? Do these perceptions differ if the injury was a mental health issue, rather than physical?
I think management often times places the mission over the safety and condition of the officers, and simply expects the officers to work through whatever problems they have, physical or mental. This leads not only to employee degradation, but a degradation of the quality of enforcement as well.
Matthew S. McNicholas is a partner with McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP in Los Angeles and represents victims in a range of areas, including catastrophic injury, wrongful death and product liability. Mr. McNicholas also has an emphasis in representing police officers and firefighters in discrimination, harassment and whistleblower matters. He can be reached at 310-474-1582 or msm@mcnicholaslaw.com.
