The East Hampton Town Board approved a resolution Tuesday to fire Police Officer Andrea Kess, a move her attorney said was payback for her own complaints against the Police Department.
“They’re basically disciplining her for exposing their lies and recording them,” her attorney, Eric Sanders, said on Monday. While he was not yet aware when first reached by phone that Ms. Kess’s employment was to be terminated on Tuesday, he said he was not surprised. “They want to terminate an employee because she’s asserting her right not to be discriminated against. . . . Classic retaliation.”
Ms. Kess, a full-time town officer since 2016, first filed complaints with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2023, alleging that she had been denied promotions based on her gender, and been a victim of sexual harassment and retaliatory working conditions. She added to those allegations last July, this time accusing Police Chief Michael Sarlo of filing a “false and deceptive” position statement with the E.E.O.C. to “sabotage, intimidate, and punish” her for filing her complaints.
Ms. Kess’s termination comes after a disciplinary hearing held at her request to contest charges of misconduct brought against her last August by Capt. Christopher Anderson of the town police. Captain Anderson alleged that she “facilitated the publication of an internal complaint,” which she’d “filed with the town’s personnel officer,” to a blog published by her attorney. Captain Anderson asserted that this constituted misconduct on several grounds.
The blog included “unredacted text messages you exchanged on your cell phone with another member of the East Hampton Town Police Department in which you discussed an upcoming meeting with an informant,” Captain Anderson wrote. Those messages, he said, identified the colleague, who was working under cover; the informant’s work schedule, and “general police investigatory operations and procedures, which jeopardizes the safety and well-being of police personnel, as well as the informant.”
According to a document provided to The Star that details the charges, Ms. Kess was also called out for “surreptitiously” recording telephone conversations with Lt. Chelsea Tierney and Patrick O’Connell, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s East End Bureau chief, both of which were also posted to her attorney’s blog in July.
Among other things, these instances, Captain Anderson said, violated department rules and procedures that “prohibit members of the Police Department from recording conversations with other members of the Department without their knowledge and consent” and “prohibit members of the Police Department from recording conversations” — secretly or otherwise — and sharing them “with the public at large, without express authorization.”
In a September response to the charges against his client, Mr. Sanders said, “Rather than addressing these serious concerns, the department, under Chief Sarlo’s leadership, fabricated these disciplinary charges to silence and discredit Kess.”
In October, the town board appointed a hearing officer, Robert Ponzini, to review the charges against Ms. Kess. Hearings took place on Dec. 4 and Feb. 5.
“Officer Kess was given multiple opportunities to defend herself against the charges but failed to appear at her two hearings,” Patrick Derenze, East Hampton Town’s public information officer, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Her attorney, however, contended in a Nov. 18 letter to the town board that “the disciplinary process against” his client “lacks transparency and violates procedural and substantive due process rights.”
Mr. Ponzini released his determination on March 20. “Following a thorough review, the hearing officer found Officer Kess guilty and recommended termination,” according to the statement from Mr. Derenze. “The evidence presented, which was uncontested by Officer Kess, clearly established her guilt. As a result, Officer Kess has been dismissed from her position with the town.”
Reached for comment on Tuesday, Chief Sarlo referred The Star to the town’s statement. In it, Mr. Derenze wrote that the town “holds the East Hampton Police Department in the highest regard and deeply values the dedication and professionalism of its members. The conduct that led to Officer Kess’s termination does not reflect the department’s standards or the commitment demonstrated by its officers.”
Mr. Sanders, on the other hand, described the department as “unprofessional,” and said, “the board and the taxpayers are going to pay for that conduct.”
While Ms. Kess’s employment as a police officer has ended, her complaints against the Police Department continue.
With Reporting by Christopher Gangemi
