“He has done an outstanding job,” the mayor said of O’Brien, “particularly as we went through a very intense 2017.”
Less than three months later, O’Brien was gone. According to documents obtained by The New York Times, O’Brien was quietly forced to resign after complaints of sexual harassment filed by two female city employees were substantiated.
Yet City Hall officials did not announce his departure or the reason for it.
At least some of the harassment occurred while O’Brien was working as acting chief of staff, Eric F. Phillips, the mayor’s press secretary, said, adding that City Hall officials first became aware of the allegations in February and acted on them promptly.
Phillips said that de Blasio was not aware of any allegations of improper behavior against O’Brien when he praised him in November 2017; the praise came during a wider announcement of personnel moves that included O’Brien moving to a senior adviser position.
“The mayor was told very broadly about the complaint almost as soon as City Hall received it,” Phillips said. “He was then made aware of the results of the very quick investigation.”
Investigators conducted interviews with the two women and O’Brien, according to a report prepared by the city’s Law Department and the office of the mayor’s counsel. The investigators said that O’Brien’s account was found “to be not credible” and recommended that he be “terminated from employment at the mayor’s office.”
The report, which was obtained in response to a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, was heavily redacted, and details of the harassment allegations, including when they took place, were not included in the material provided to The Times.
O’Brien’s ouster came at a delicate moment for City Hall, as the national #MeToo movement focused attention on sexual harassment, and de Blasio struggled to answer questions about how his administration handled harassment complaints.
Administration officials, after months of delays, eventually released data on the sexual harassment complaints filed against city employees: From mid 2013 through 2017, there were 1,312 such complaints lodged at all city agencies, with 221 substantiated, the city said at the time. Those substantiated claims involved as many as five mayor’s office employees. But the administration gave no details and did not identify the workers.
The report on O’Brien states that the two complainants requested anonymity and therefore their names and identifying information were omitted from the document.
The first assistant corporation counsel, Georgia Pestana, who was one of the authors of the investigative report, said the circumstances of O’Brien’s departure were not made public in order to protect his accusers.
“Making a spectacle of his resignation absolutely would have increased the chances of our complainants’ identities being known against their consent,” she said, adding that it might also have made victims in other cases wary of coming forward.
The Times was able to independently confirm the identity of one of the women, and is withholding her name and details about her job that could identify her because she is a victim of harassment. When contacted by The Times, the woman, who is younger than O’Brien and was a much more junior employee, declined to speak about the case.
“The complaint alleges sexual harassment in violation of the city’s equal employment opportunity policy,” the report stated.
The report, dated Feb. 13, 2018, said that the two women who accused O’Brien were interviewed in early February 2018 and that their accounts were deemed to be credible.
“Determination: After investigation, the allegations of sexual harassment are substantiated,” the report concluded. Referring to O’Brien, it said: “It is recommended that the respondent be terminated from employment at the mayor’s office.”
Phillips said that O’Brien, whose portfolio as senior adviser — following his stint as acting chief of staff — included issues like the opioid crisis and mental health initiatives, was forced to resign within a day or two of the report’s completion. He said the decision to ask for O’Brien’s resignation was made by the first deputy mayor, Dean Fuleihan, and Emma Wolfe, O’Brien’s replacement as chief of staff.
However, a resignation form signed by O’Brien, and obtained by The Times, is dated March 23, which coincides with the date of O’Brien’s final paycheck. Phillips said that O’Brien continued to be paid for several weeks to account for unused vacation days.
O’Brien was paid a salary of $220,652 a year, according to city records. Only about 10 people in the mayor’s office had higher salaries.
O’Brien, who is married, blamed his actions on alcohol.
“There’s no excuse for what I’ve done; I’m embarrassed and ashamed,” O’Brien, 36, said in a written statement. “At an after-work event, I drank too much and acted inappropriately. No one deserves to be treated that way. I’ve apologized to the people I’ve hurt and will continue to do so because I am truly sorry.”
O’Brien now works at Hilltop Public Solutions, a political consulting firm founded by Nicholas R. Baldick, a close ally of the mayor who initially recommended O’Brien to City Hall.
“My use of alcohol has led me to make horrible decisions,” he said, adding that he was getting “professional help.”
In a written statement, de Blasio called the harassment within his inner circle “an absolutely unacceptable situation.”
“To the courageous women who stepped forward, I am sorry this happened,” the statement said. “We have a responsibility to foster a safe and respectful workplace. I hope the speed and thoroughness with which this was handled show how seriously we take that standard.”
A spokeswoman for Hilltop said that O’Brien had taken a leave of absence from the company this week.
The company, which has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for work for de Blasio’s mayoral campaigns and for the Campaign for One New York, a defunct nonprofit the mayor had used to support his agenda, had listed O’Brien on its website as a principal in its New York office.
That web page was blank Wednesday; it had chronicled O’Brien’s experience in politics, saying that he had “helped campaigns and causes survive and communicate through crisis.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.