A Hamptons police officer claims she was sexually harassed and passed over for promotions while working in a frat-like atmosphere where women were referred to as “b——” and “whores.”
East Hampton Police Officer Andrea Kess claims in a new Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that male officers in the department made an “incalculable number of sexually offensive comments” during her seven years on the job.
“Everyone knows how you get your information,” her supervisor Lt. Daniel Toia allegedly said in 2021, according to the discrimination complaint. “It’s only because people want to sleep with you. They give you information because they know they can get down your pants.”
Kess, who’s 42 and still on the job, claimed in the complaint that cops in the department also called sex assaults “Montauk love stories” and referred to the victims with derogatory terms.
Meanwhile, Kess was trying to prove herself because she wanted to be the first female detective on the seven-member unit.
“I started to see there’s a very clear culture there,” she told The Post. “They don’t want a female back there.”
She was passed over twice for the position in 2018 and 2022 despite a record that included racking up 333 arrests and 1,621 traffic citations since 2016, more than any other officer, her complaint states. She also received 14 citations for exemplary service and numerous awards.
As a cop, she helped take down a sex-trafficking operation in 2018 after cultivating a relationship with a victim who she convinced to cooperate with the FBI. The investigation led to 11 arrests, a press release from the feds shows.
Then, in 2021, she took the initiative when a resident came to headquarters to complain about loud explosions.
Kess found that there had been hundreds of reports about the booming noises in the same area over several years. She interviewed witnesses, and found spent mortar shells on a property.
Her bosses mocked her for investigating, she said, but Kess contacted the ATF anyway.
The feds responded and searched the property, recovering a large amount of professional fireworks in a shed on a homeowner’s property.
“The ATF said if that shed had caught on fire it would have leveled the houses around him,” Kess recalled.
She finally got to interview for detective in April 2022 and appeared before a review board of five men, including Toia. A male cop was chosen.
Around the same time, Toia told her she seemed “like a smart girl” but “you just don’t f—— get it,” the complaint alleges.
“Leave the investigating to my guys,” he said.
Kess and her attorney Eric Sanders plan to file a federal lawsuit.
“I operate from integrity and if this helps other women who might want to come into this department I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said.
East Hampton Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said the town planned to mediate the complaint and that he couldn’t comment further on pending litigation. A working number for Lt. Toia couldn’t be located.
