Rockville Centre Police Commissioner James Vafeades sent a cardboard penis to a subordinate in the department and then cancelled a planned promotion for him after he reportedly informed superiors that Vafeades had been also working as a co-owner of a Wantagh bagel shop without approval, as per a lawsuit filed against him.
Sgt. John Beatty claims in a $10 million lawsuit filed with the Brooklyn Federal Court that Vafeades – in addition to sending him the cardboard phallus in a box and putting the kibosh on a promotion he had been lined up for – also plastered images of the complainant’s face superimposed on the body of a rat all over the precinct.
The alleged cause of the bad blood reportedly stems from an incident in 2017, when Beatty entered Wantagh Bagels at 3056 Merrick Road in Wantagh and noticed Vafeades behind the counter; at the time, Vafeades had bought into the business for $125,000, an act that had not been approved by the department beforehand.
Despite the violation of department policy, Vafeades was promoted to the department’s commissioner in in 2018; the alleged abuse began shortly afterwards.
Beatty’s $10 million lawsuit purports that Vafeades and the village of Rockville Centre engaged in whistleblower retaliation and violated his First Amendment right to free speech.
