In 2005, a woman took a job working for the New York City Human Resources Administration as an Associate Staff Analyst Hearing Officer in the Employee Disciplinary Unit. As an officer of this department, she had access to confidential information relative to other employees in the department as well as in other departments in New York City Government. She was prohibited by contract and by law from accessing anyone else’s confidential information without express authorization from a supervisor.
A New York Drug Crime Lawyer said the woman was having problems within her department. She felt that she was being discriminated against by supervisors and co-workers based on her race and gender. She began inquiring outside of the department about what she should do to file a lawsuit for discrimination. She obtained advise from a friend that she should gather as much evidence as she could about the department and some of the situations that existed within that department. One of the issues that was bothering her was a romantic relationship that she felt existed between two co-workers that was inappropriate in the workplace.
She went into the Human Resources computer base and accessed their personal information so that she could provide the information to her attorney for use in her lawsuit. She admitted that she had done this in a deposition pursuant to the case. When the department discovered that she had obtained this information illegally, they fired her without notice. A New York Drug Possession Lawyer said she appealed her termination on the grounds that she did not violate the law since she did not disseminate the information that she had obtained and she did not use the information to commit a crime.