Lawsuit: Female Yorktown doctor made sexual advances

lohud.com

Erik Shilling

Dr. Susan Malley had long crossed professional lines at the Yorktown clinic where she worked until recently, a former co-worker said in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed last week, mistreating staff and mocking patients’ concerns behind their backs.
But Janine Mancuso, who worked at the clinic for nearly a year, said that Malley’s behavior crossed a new line when Malley began making a series of sexual advances toward her, asking her out to dinner for a “girls’ night” and rubbing her arms for long periods of time.
“I love how you accessorize,” Malley is alleged to have once told Mancuso, who identifies as heterosexual. “You’re so beautiful.”
Mancuso eventually complained to administrators at Westchester Health Associates, which ran the clinic, and after administrators there said that they had dealt with the problem, Malley stopped kissing Mancuso on the face and touching her. Then one day, it is alleged, Malley began acting like a jilted lover.
Malley, Mancuso said, came into the office on a weekend to smash a picture of her.
Shortly after that, Mancuso went on short-term disability, ostensibly for trauma related to the harassment. She was walked out of the Yorktown clinic in August and has never worked there again.
Mancuso filed the lawsuit Feb. 24 in U.S. District Court in White Plains, claiming that Malley’s alleged actions created a hostile work environment, and that administrators’ lack of remedial action constituted retaliation. The lawsuit does not specify how much money it seeks in damages, and a lawyer for Mancuso did not return a request for comment. Messages left for Malley were not returned.
Mancuso started working as a office manager at the clinic in September 2011. She worked in other clinics after graduating in 2001 from Western Connecticut State University, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Malley’s behavior, as claimed in the lawsuit, ranges from merely off-color to potentially illegal. The gynecologist criticized receptionists, called one staff member “white trash,” referred to others as a “waste of money,” called others incompetent and poor dressers, rejected one female job applicant she thought was too ugly and criticized another applicant’s bad teeth, the lawsuit alleges.
 Malley regularly undercut Mancuso’s authority as an office manager, the lawsuit alleges, by questioning her hiring decisions, telling Mancuso’s subordinates to ignore her, and, on June 14, telling staff to watch their backs around Mancuso, a day before the picture-smashing incident.
The 13-page lawsuit at one point makes reference to Malley’s alleged suggestion that Mancuso sleep with a female superior to further her career. The lawsuit does not identify the female supervisor ; officials at Westchester Health Associates did not respond to requests for comment.
Malley’s alleged gossip about her patients, including one teenage girl she had performed reconstructive surgery on, was more salacious. The lawsuit claims she made light of another patient who had tattooed her genitalia, as well as a third who complained that sexual intercourse was painful.
According to her website, Malley, a married mother of three, has since left Westchester Health Associates and has started her own “gentle gynecology” practice in Danbury, Conn. She graduated from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Michigan.
“Quite recently, I left my position,” Malley wrote on the website, “discovering after several years that I was not following my own advice about finding a good fit for oneself in all things.”

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