The state Assembly is off the hook for Vito Lopez’s groping of staffers, a Manhattan judge ruled Tuesday.
Judge Joan Kenney tossed a Manhattan civil lawsuit filed by two female staffers of the deposed Brooklyn assemblyman, ruling that the legislative body could not be held liable for the politician’s behavior because it was not the women’s employer.
Kenney called descriptions of Lopez’s advances on 20-something staffers Victoria Burhans and Chloe Rivera “alarming” and even noted the “voluminous account” of prior sexual harassment complaints brought against Lopez.
She acknowledged allegations that the Assembly didn’t properly address the prior complaints — an action that could have prevented more incidents — but said there was no evidence that other lawmakers “aided or abetted Lopez’s discriminatory conduct.”
Kenney also wrote that because the elected politicians “have no ownership interest in the Assembly itself,” the body can’t be considered an employer for the purposes of the suit.
A second, parallel case is still pending in federal court by the two women against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and against Lopez.
A state ethics commission found last year that Lopez had accosted at least eight staffers with an unrelenting volley of lurid come-ons since 2010.
The women’s attorney, Kevin Mintzer, vowed to re-file the state suit, amending it to show the Assembly as a whole was responsible for their safety because it published a sexual harassment handbook for all members and technically paid their salaries.
Lawyers for the Assembly did not immediately return calls for comment.