after he was accused of collecting overtime<\/a> while moonlighting as a psychotherapist, and the city is now seeking reimbursement, sources told The Post.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nBut the certified psychologist said that the NYPD made up these accusations and launched numerous baseless complaints against him as revenge for advocating for quality mental health care for police officers, according to a lawsuit filed on June 23 in Manhattan Supreme Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matthew Graziano (left) is suing the NYPD after he quit in April amid an investigation into him allegedly collecting overtime while working another job. Instagram \/ NYPD Police Academy<\/p>\n
He is seeking an unspecified amount of damages.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce he started doing that, then they started retaliating against him because suddenly complaints started appearing against him,\u201d his lawyer Nicole Brenecki told The Post.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graziano, 45, who sees clients privately in New Jersey, joined the NYPD in 2022 as psychologist and was promoted to the executive role in 2024 \u2014 a position with a cushy starting salary of $180,000, according to the city\u2019s official job site.<\/p>\n
In his leadership position, he started sounding the alarm about ethical concerns \u2014 including allegedly being forced to breach confidentiality with police officers seeking help from the health and wellness section.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some things that you would confide in a psychologist that would normally be held confidential \u2026but the NYPD was trying to turn it from confidential to disciplinary,\u201d Brenecki said. \u201cSo the files that were confidential before would become part of a disciplinary file.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graziano also said he called out alleged gender discrimination within the department, which only resulted in him allegedly being targeted because he is a gay man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graziano accused the department of trying to compromise his ethical integrity. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce he started actually complaining about their practices, that\u2019s when they started making little comments here and there and being a little nasty to him on that basis,\u201d Brenecki said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graziano escalated his complaints to outside entities including the New York State Education Department\u2019s Office of the Professions, the Internal Affair Bureau, the Equal Employment Opportunities office and the Office of the Inspector General.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In April, he was abruptly called into a meeting with his supervisors and told he was being investigated for working another job while cashing in on NYPD overtime. <\/p>\n
It is unclear how much the city is demanding.<\/p>\n
Graziano was hired by the NYPD in 2022. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n
Brenecki said Graziano \u201cnever violated any rules\u201d or logged hours he didn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n
The department was also aware that he ran his own practice when he was hired.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Graziano was told he was being demoted to an entry level job immediately. Instead of accepting the position, he quit on the spot, his lawyer explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wishes well to all the rank officers. He doesn\u2019t think the way the NYPD is run is good for them. He feels that they\u2019re being exploited. They\u2019re being mistreated,\u201d Brenecki said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are they supposed to open up about the problems they experience on the job if that is part of a file that can later determine that they\u2019re being terminated?\u201d<\/p>\n
The NYPD did not return a request for comment. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former head psychologist of the NYPD claims he was forced out of his job in retaliation for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31432,2850,57,1066,9,56,63,65,64,103,58],"class_list":["post-293260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ex-cops","tag-lawsuits","tag-metro","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}