KAMILLAH HANKS IN CRISIS

Councilwoman Hit with EEO Abuse Bombshell, Linked to Drug Lord Weeks Before Primary

By Rick LaRivière and M. Thomas Nast with Richard Luthmann

CRY FOR HELP: STAFFER ACCUSES HANKS OF RETALIATION, ABUSE, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORMENT

A senior staffer in the office of Staten Island Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks has come forward with explosive allegations of workplace abuse and retaliation.

In a scathing letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) office, the employee, whose name is withheld for safety, details nearly a year of verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse allegedly orchestrated by Hanks herself.

The letter, dated in May, describes a workplace “so toxic” that the employee claims to have suffered panic attacks, chest pains, and insomnia. The writer accuses Hanks of retaliating after they took caregiver leave to tend to a dying partner, under a law Hanks herself sponsored.

This comes just three weeks before Hanks faces a contested Democratic Primary in New York City’s 49th District.

KAMILLAH HANKS IN CRISIS: FULL LETTER: “MY LIFE IS UNRAVELING”

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter serves as a formal follow-up to the numerous concerns and complaints I have submitted to your office regarding the abuse I have endured while working under Council Member Hanks in the 49th District. The EEO has been aware of the toxic and hostile conditions I’ve been subjected to since last year, when I began submitting written accounts detailing the ongoing verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse in my workplace. Despite this, my most recent case has now sat unaddressed for 49 days, during which time my physical and mental health have drastically deteriorated.

I am sounding the alarm—again—because I am suffering. I am in crisis.

Since submitting my request for caregiver leave to care for my partner, who was on the brink of death and whose survival was deemed unlikely by medical professionals, I have faced escalating retaliation and targeted psychological torment. The irony and cruelty are unbearable: this leave was granted under a bill sponsored by the very Council Member who is now retaliating against me.

Since taking that leave, I have been:

• Exiled to an isolated office outside of the borough I was hired to serve—an act that has effectively erased me from my role and severed me from my team and community.

• Abused, silenced, and outcasted in ways that have left me mentally broken, emotionally destabilized, and physically ill.

• Experiencing panic attacks, loss of appetite, insomnia, and terrifying chest pains so severe I believed I was having a heart attack just yesterday on my way to work.

• Subjected to degrading falsehoods, with my professional reputation tarnished, despite the fact that no official HR complaint or performance issue has ever existed on my record.

• Continuing to serve constituents and take calls for help, even while being punished and ignored by the very office meant to protect workers like me.

I did not take this job to be abused. I did not put myself on the front lines of public service to be emotionally executed for doing my job with integrity and compassion. And yet, the EEO—despite being in receipt of documented proof and repeated reports from me—has allowed this torment to persist for nearly a year, and this most recent complaint has been ignored for 49 days and counting.

My life is unraveling. My health is in jeopardy. My children have watched their mother deteriorate into someone who can barely get out of bed without crying or gasping for air. I am haunted by fear each morning that I may not return home. And still, nothing has been done.

This is retaliation. This is abuse. This is negligence. And this is inhumane.

I am demanding:

• An immediate investigation into this matter and my full case history.

• Transparency and accountability from the EEO for the failure to act.

• Protection from further abuse and permanent removal from this hostile environment.

• Immediate intervention to ensure my health, safety, and career are no longer jeopardized by inaction.

You are in possession of my documentation. You are aware of the history. And now, you are aware of my ongoing and escalating suffering.

I will not be gaslit. I will not be silenced. And I refuse to become another name forgotten on a desk while my life crumbles beneath the weight of unchecked abuse. If something irreversible happens to me, I want it known that I begged for help. I documented it. I gave the system every opportunity to intervene. And the system did not.

NAME WITHHELD FOR SAFETY

KAMILLAH HANKS IN CRISIS: QUESTIONS FOR NYC COUNCIL SPEAKER ADRIENNE ADAMS

“This letter raises red flags about retaliation, mismanagement, and hypocrisy,” a City Hall source said. “She pushed caregiver protections publicly—then punished her own employee for using them privately?”

Neither Hanks nor the NYC EEO Office has responded publicly about the workplace abuse allegations.

But silence isn’t sitting well with local political figures or voters.

“This letter should have prompted immediate action. There’s no excuse,” said a North Shore voter. “The Council needs to investigate Kamillah Hanks now.”

A constituent activist added: “If she can do this to her own staff, what’s she doing with city resources?”

ELECTION COMPLICATIONS: PRIMARY DAY LOOMS AS SCANDALS EXPLODE

Kamillah Hanks faces a high-stakes Democratic primary on June 24. Insiders now worry the EEO bombshell could derail her re-election campaign.

Hanks is already under fire for backing the underhanded effort to remove Democratic challenger Jozette Carter-Williams from the ballot using the Board of Elections and the courts.

Critics allege she used inside connections to eliminate her opponent from the June 24 Democratic Primary, and Hanks also has mischief in store for the November Election Day ballot.

“She’s doing it again. She sent in Paul Casali to challenge Jozette’s signatures on the Independent Line,” a source close to the Carter-Williams campaign said.

Casali, a career political staffer, rejoined Team Hanks after being previously dismissed. One source said it was due to “problem drinking.”

“It was very strange,” said Carter-Williams campaign consultant Michael J. Cox, a NYS political veteran. “He took to Facebook and started calling everyone a FRAUD. Jozette, the campaign manager, then the campaign. Then he called me a FRAUD.”

Cox said there was no finding of fraud in the case, and that Casali’s behavior is unacceptable in politics and legally actionable.

“I’ve already consulted with an attorney about a defamation per se claim. Never in five decades of political work has my name and fraud been in the same ZIP code, let alone the same sentence. It’s no excuse that you got ‘tuned up’ and then deleted the posts the next morning when you sobered up. Everybody saw them,” Cox said.

Casali remains the legal objector for the Carter-Williams Independent Line ballot access designating petition. It remains to be seen if Casali and Hanks will look to knock Carter-Williams off the November ballot by filing specific objections at the Board of Elections and a case in New York State Supreme Court. Richard Luthmann, a contributor to this outlet and a dewp knowledge of Staten Island electoral politcs sad there are many moving parts.

“Casali and Kamillah could decide to let the objections go, but that’s not in their DNA. They detest winning at the ballot box and would rather use a technicality in the Board of Elections where their relatives and political cronies work,” said Luthmann, who is suing Hanks, her husband Kevin Barry Love, and the Hanks Campaign for unpaid fees and business injuries. “They are monetary and political DEADBEATS in every sense of the word.”

Luthmann says his understanding is that one way that Casali’s objections can be stopped is through legal standing.

“Casali must have standing at every procedural moment. Therefore, if he were to die or move out of the District, he would lose standing, and Jozette Carter-Williams would appear on the Independent Line in November,” Luthmann said. “According to public records (including Board of Elections records) and protected sources under Section 79-h of the New York Civil Rights Law, Paul Casali currently lives at 232 Morningstar Road, Staten Island, NY 10303, has the phone number 917-714-4205, and regularly stumbles home intoxicated in the evenings, according to those who have witnessed it in their opinions.”

One of those opinions is Hanks’s. According to Luthmann, a source heard Hanks say at the now-closed CARGO restaurant on Bay Street that she had to let Casali go the first time “because he was a drunk.”

A source close to the Carter-Williams campaign also said that Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon was involved “fixing” the Casali situation.

“Mike said that they would take care of it,” the source said.

KAMILLAH HANKS IN CRISIS: ETTORE MAZZEI’S DAUGHTER FLIPS AS COUNCILWOMAN’S TIES TO CRIME FAMILY DEEPEN

The Staten Island drug ring that allegedly funneled fentanyl and cocaine through a web of shell operations and nonprofits just saw its biggest break: Melissa Mazzei has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Mazzei, daughter of alleged kingpin Ettore Mazzei, admitted to moving narcotics across the borough.

Her plea follows a two-year wiretap operation that also ensnared her brother and father, linking them to overdose deaths and scams.

The political fallout may land squarely in City Hall.

Councilwoman Hanks and her husband, Kevin Barry Love, are entangled in the Mazzei scandal:

• Ettore Mazzei served on the board of Hanks’s nonprofit, Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership Inc.

• Hanks drew an $82,375 salary from the nonprofit while Mazzei was on the board.

• Hanks never returned Mazzei’s campaign contributions, despite his indictment.

• Sources say Kevin Barry Love acted as a political enforcer and campaign “bag man,” shaking down businesses for donations.

• One insider said: “Kevin and Mazzei weren’t just acquaintances—they were business associates.”

KAMILLAH HANKS IN CRISIS: DA McMAHON UNDER PRESSURE AS WITNESS FLIPS

District Attorney Michael McMahon now faces demands to explain why his office hasn’t subpoenaed Hanks or Love, whom he’s supported, drawing the ire of law enforcement.

Questions swirl:

• Why is Board of Elections Commissioner Michele Sileo, another former Tappen Park board member and Hanks’s hand-picked appointee, allowed to rule on Hanks’s City Council ballot?

• Can McMahon prosecute Mazzei while publicly politically backing Hanks?

As Melissa Mazzei talks, insiders say the net could widen.

“If Melissa is talking, she’s not just talking about drug deals,” a Democratic strategist said. “She’s talking about who got paid and who looked the other way.”

With Mazzei’s trial nearing and the primary days away, Kamillah Hanks’s political survival is hanging by a thread—and her legal exposure may just be beginning.