An NYPD lieutenant whose job was to stop workplace harassment within the department has been fired for sexually harassing a subordinate, the Daily News has learned.
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell ordered Lt. Jose Briceno be dismissed from the department in late November after an NYPD administrative trials judge found him guilty of sexual harassment, displaying offensive materials and prohibited conduct, according to the just-released decision.
Before the sexual harassment charges were filed, Briceno was the integrity control officer at the NYPD’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, where he was tasked with “developing and implementing the Department’s sexual harassment programs and policies,” according to findings prepared by Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Trials Josh Kleiman.
But on Oct. 20, 2021, Briceno began sharing sexually suggestive texts to a subordinate officer.
The officer, who testified at Briceno’s departmental trial, played along with the texts but by the next day made it clear she didn’t want a physical relationship with him. Still the texts continued, she said.
In one text exchange when the subordinate said she was going to wear a polo shirt the following week, Briceno wrote, “I’ll make you take it off in front of me,” according to the judge’s report.
“I’ll take (your bra) off,” he continued to write. “You would like that if I do it with my mouth.”
Despite her saying that he shouldn’t “go messing around like that,” the harassment continued.
“Come sit on my lap,” he wrote her. “We can do it in (the) office.”
During these exchanges, Briceno sent her pictures of his genitals and a video of him having sex with another woman, members of the department advocate’s office found. He’s also accused of touching the officer’s hips, back, shoulders and hair, and making comments about her weight, police sources said.
At his departmental trial, Briceno said he didn’t consider “the touching to be inappropriate” and asserted he was not guilty of misconduct because he and his subordinate “were involved in a mutually flirtatious and consenting relationship,” the report summarizes.
“At trial, however, (Briceno) admitted that in hindsight he may have been mistaken,” the report notes.
Briceno was the second member of the NYPD’s Equal Employment Opportunity Division accused of harassment that year.
A few months earlier Deputy Inspector James Kobel, the former commanding officer of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division, a sub-unit of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, was fired after a probe revealed he made hundreds of racist and sexist posts on an anonymous online message board.
Briceno joined the NYPD in July 2004 and joined the Office of Equity and Inclusion in 2019.
Members of the Lieutenant’s Benevolent Association on Thursday declined to comment on Briceno’s firing.