Manhattan Assemblyman Micah Kellner is the latest Assembly member to be punished for sexually harassing staffers.
Kellner was stripped of his no-salary post as chairman of the Libraries Committee and banned from holding any other leadership job after it was found he made inappropriate comments to staff members in 2009 and 2011.
He is also forbidden from employing interns and is required to attend sexual harassment workshops.
“I hope these actions will send a loud and clear message that we will not tolerate this type of behavior and that sexual harassment has no place in the Assembly,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said in a statement released Monday evening.
Silver acted after the Assembly’s Ethics Committee found Kellner created a “hostile work environment” for staff members in 2009 and 2011.
The committee did not release further details about the incidents, but it was reported over the summer that Kellner had sexually charged online conversations with a young woman on his staff in 2009.
It was also reported that Kellner’s then chief of staff Eliyanna Kaiser had brought the allegations to Silver’s then-counsel Bill Collins in 2009, but the matter was never pursued. Collins retired after the incident became public.
Kellner will also be required to attend workshops on sexual harassment.
It was also reported that Kellner, who considers himself bisexual, had inappropriate conversations with a male staff member in 2011.
Kellner, who lost a bid for City Council this year, has apologized for his behavior.
He declined to comment Monday night, saying he and his lawyer were still reviewing the Ethics Committee report.
In banning Kellner from any future leadership posts and freezing his staff allocations – effectively reducing the assemblyman’s staff through attrition – Silver went beyond the punishment recommendations the Ethics Committee made.
In a letter to Kellner, Silver said his behavior was “intolerable” and “inconsistent with the standards of conduct to which members of the Assembly should be held.”
The Kellner sanctions come less than a year after former Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) was forced to resign because of a state ethics committee report that found he’d repeatedly harassed female staffers.
Silver was blasted for his handling of the Lopez scandal after it was revealed he quietly settled two initial claims against Lopez without sending the matter to the Assembly Ethics Committee for an investigation.
The sanctions also come just days after Silver asked the Assembly panel to investigate sexual harassment allegations made against Buffalo-area Assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak by four women.