Former Newark cop accuses mayor and superior officers of sexual harassment

NEWARK — A former Newark police officer has accused her superiors, including the mayor, of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Laura Ciesla filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 29, which says she was forced out of her job over the use of prescribed medication and months of retaliation and pressure.

“The city completely denies the allegations in the complaint against the mayor, which we are hearing about for the first time,” Newark Corporation Counsel Kenyatta Stewart said, NJ.com reported.

Ciesla, a Caldwell resident, entered the police academy in August 2018 and graduated that December.

The sexual harassment started in 2019 when multiple superior officers asked her out, made crude comments and asked for nude selfies, according to the lawsuit.

She was told that the only reason she graduated was because she was a white woman, the lawsuit says.

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Mayor harassed her for shower selfies, ex-cop says

Ciesla said two years after graduating the police academy, Mayor Ras Baraka also sexually harassed her starting in December 2020.

She said his harassment included asking for kisses, photos of her in the shower, and inviting her to spas and dinners.

After also receiving messages from Baraka on the app Signal, Ciesla continued to reject his advances, which ultimately stopped, she says in the lawsuit, which does not include any screenshots of any messages.

On March 15, 2023, Ciesla was selected for random drug screening by the Newark Police Department. The lawsuit says she listed all doctor-prescribed and over-the-counter medicines and supplements she had taken up to 14 days before the screening.

Just over a month later, Internal Affairs Division officials approached Ciesla and said she had to hand over her firearm as she had tested positive for a “prescription narcotic.”

She asked if she had to get a doctor’s note for all medications, and was told it was oxycodone that had presented an issue on her screening.

Ciesla said there was already a doctor's note in her file from 2018 related to her off-duty use of the painkiller.

The lawsuit then describes months of being pressed to provide multiple, confidential medical documents and accusations of faking some of those documents, which meant disciplinary hearings and a delay in her return to being armed for work.

Ciesla has said she was ultimately forced into resigning last year, after suffering a mental health crisis and dealing with the chronic pain of a shoulder injury.

The lawsuit seeks lost earnings as well as punitive damages.

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