The NYPD sergeant sued for allegedly driving her cop underling to suicide when she refused to break off the affair told police investigators that the relationship was consensual — and that her subordinate lover killed himself when she tried to dump him, a law-enforcement source said.
Christine Hirtzel was accused in a Queens lawsuit filed by the widow of Officer Matthew Schindler, of making his work life unbearable unless he continued their affair. But she told Internal Affairs investigators after he shot himself to death last year that Schindler was the one who was smitten, the source said.
“She told IAB at the time that they were having a consensual affair and she tried to break it off,” the source said. “[She said] he became upset, and he said that he couldn’t live without her, then killed himself.”
Moments before he shot himself on the side of the Long Island Expressway on Feb. 13, “he called [Hirtzel], saying he wouldn’t be around anymore,” the source said.
A panicked Hirtzel tried to get police in her precinct to track the suicidal cop’s location. “She actually said, ‘Can you guys go up on his phone?’ You can’t just do that,” the source said.
Schindler’s grieving widow, Gina, filed the suit against Hirtzel, the city and the NYPD, claiming that her husband was coerced to swap sexual favors with his boss in exchange for a favorable work schedule and assignments.
The suit claims that the married dad “was made to understand that he would suffer tangible detriment in his job, job assignments, work conditions and future prospects if he did not submit to the sexual advances and demands of [Hirtzel].”
Hirtzel fled the stationhouse yesterday when the news broke, a source said. Her husband has declined to comment.
Schindler’s lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.