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A federal judge has ruled that much of former Police Accountability Board executive director Conor Dwyer Reynolds’ lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and retaliation can go to a jury, while dismissing several claims against the city of Rochester, former PAB chair Shani Wilson and other individual defendants.
U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci Jr. last month issued a 59-page decision granting summary judgment on some claims and denying it on others. The ruling comes more than three years after Reynolds was fired and just over three years after he filed suit.
The ruling is not a determination on the truth of Reynolds’ allegations. At this stage, the judge had to view the evidence in Reynolds’ light and decide only whether a reasonable jury could have found for him. The defendants deny that former Wilson harassed him. They say the two were mutually attracted, court documents state.
Geraci’s ruling set a status conference for last week.
Reynolds was confirmed as PAB executive director in late 2020. He served in that role until he was put on administrative leave in May 2022 amid internal complaints about his leadership and management. The board then terminated him in November of that year.
Reynolds claims he faced constant sexual harassment by Wilson beginning in October 2020. He alleges that subsequent retaliatory acts after he turned down advances led him to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.
He told the board he planned to file a formal harassment complaint in April 2022, a month before the board placed him on administrative leave. In June 2022, Reynolds wrote an article in Medium titled, “I Reported Sexual Harassment by My Boss. A Week Later, I Was Suspended.”
He says Wilson’s connections to powerful local figures made him wary of coming forward with accusations. Her conduct, which he contends led to other PAB members resigning, convinced him to attempt to come forward with them.
“#MeToo has also taught us that, despite whatever progress we’ve made, our culture still clings to false narratives about victims of sexual harassment. As one Board member told me, people do not believe I was sexually harassed because they have seen me ‘socializing’ with Shani,” Reynolds wrote.
He called the incident a tragedy for PAB staff, Rochester Police Department staff who are “desperate to address the misconduct they see and suffer from coworkers,” and the community that voted for the PAB.
Wilson resigned in June 2022, but also publicly called Reynold’s allegations false. Internal complaints about his conduct listed employment practices, alleged misuse of funds, and unauthorized practice of law as concerns by Chenoa Maye, then the PAB deputy chief of investigations.
After Reynolds, Duwaine Bascoe briefly served as interim executive director before Sherry Walker-Cowart was appointed to the position in December 2022. She held that role for about 19 months before Lesli Myers-Small was hired and confirmed in July 2024.
Three days after the federal judge’s ruling on the Reynolds’ lawsuit, a state appeals court overturned the city of Rochester’s April 2025 termination of Rosabel Antonetti, a former PAB director of operations, and ordered her reinstated with back pay, minus any unemployment benefits she received.
The ruling found the March 2025 disciplinary hearing that led to her firing legally defective. It did not decide whether the allegations against Antonetti were true, and the city can still bring new disciplinary proceedings that follow the law.
It also found that Myers-Small should have stepped aside since she brought the disciplinary charges and testified at the hearing. She also appointed the hearing officer, Shirley Green, commissioner of the Department of Recreation and Human Services, who credited Myers-Small’s testimony in sustaining the charges. The court held that Myers-Small should not have reviewed those findings and made the final termination decision
One of the few original members of the PAB, Antonetti claimed the culture was toxic and worsened as time went on. In her termination hearing Antonetti was accused of financial misconduct and unprofessional conduct.
These court developments come as the PAB’s authority has been sharply diminished. A 2020 lawsuit by the Rochester Police Locust Club stripped the agency of its disciplinary powers when the state Supreme Court upheld the ruling. An appellate court upheld a different Locust Club lawsuit this year, which takes investigative powers away from the organization.
Although the city has said it intends to pursue the case further, the city terminated six employees in the PAB’s investigative division in April. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a suit against the city in August, stating it failed to administer required civil service exams, which left workers unprotected against layoffs.
Amid this turmoil, the PAB created a Legislative Affairs Committee focused on restoring authority taken away by the Locust Club suits. PAB board member Larry Knox said at October’s meeting that there was ongoing work to have the City Council and the New York State Civilian Oversight Consortium, a state coalition of civilian police oversight agencies, adopt resolutions supporting them.
“As we see across this country with the rollbacks of civilian oversight of law enforcement, us being able to prevent that is really important. And this legislative process is one avenue to do that,” Knox said about the efforts at the August meeting.
The PAB has also created a dashboard for its data, which includes information about misconduct complaints and use of force incidents. It has also continued outreach in the community and is taking police misconduct complaints. The agency reported 1,747 resident engagements at 26 community events in August and has recorded 83 misconduct complaints so far this year.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
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