NJ Transit worker files sexual harassment complaint after years of alleged abuse by boss

On the first day of her job maintaining signals for NJ Transit, Mariah Cruz said her boss warned her that she was one of the few women in the department — and could experience some problems.

“If you have any issues with any of the guys, come to me first, don’t go higher up, it’s going to be a lot of paperwork for me and it’ll probably give you a bad name if the guys are going to judge you for it, so just come to me and we’ll just figure it out from there — and that was Day One,” Cruz recalled in a recent interview.

That supervisor, Bobby Jones, Jr., ended up being the very cause of the problems he had warned about, Cruz alleges.

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She filed a complaint with NJ Transit’s Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action office, detailing more than a dozen alleged incidents between 2018 and 2023, accusing Jones of sexually harassing her, making inappropriate comments and constantly reminding her that he was tracking her on cameras and with GPS.

After a five-month investigation, including interviews with multiple witnesses, Cruz said she received a letter from NJ Transit substantiating her claim that Jones violated the agency’s sexual harassment policy, and that "appropriate action" was taken.

Jones remains employed by the agency.

Cruz shared her story in exclusive interviews with NorthJersey.com and provided documents and emails to support her allegations.

Cruz, who recently left NJ Transit after six years, said she wanted to go on the record in hope that more exposure would inspire other women or men who have experienced harassment or retaliation to come forward.

Her story aligns with those of more than 20 current and former NJ Transit employees who have sued the agency over allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, racism and retaliation against colleagues in recent years, along with accusations that the agency has not done enough to prevent harassment.

“It’s been so frustrating trying to fight the good fight,” Cruz said. “I just care about the men that I work with and I care about myself and I care about the other women who haven’t been able to speak up or did speak up and didn’t go anywhere.”

Jones, a longtime employee at NJ Transit, did not respond to an email, call or voicemail left on his cellphone. NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith declined to comment or provide answers to questions about the case, saying it was a personnel issue.

‘He always wanted me to be alone with him’

It started with weird comments, Cruz said, such as Jones telling her that if she couldn’t make a good cup of coffee how could she expect to find a husband, or how guys find it hot when girls like her listen to metal music and wear work boots.

“He always wanted me to be alone with him, so he would send the other guys off, and then it would be me and him running to meet the guys somewhere,” Cruz said.

On one of those occasions after just five months on the job, Cruz and Jones were walking up a hill to troubleshoot a cable when he yelled down to her, “Hey, get your cute ass up here,” according to Cruz.

Shortly after that, another incident took place between Cruz and Jones in front of about 10 peers digging a trench for a new cable.

“I was taking my break, had my gloves in my butt pocket and was just kind of resting on my shovel, and Bobby — who was just in the background, he wasn’t doing anything — walks over, grabs my gloves out of my butt pocket, grazes my butt in the process, throws the gloves on the ground and just walks away,” Cruz said. “He didn’t do this to anyone else before or after.”

The incidents piled up over the years, with Jones inquiring whether she spent the night with coworkers after a fishing trip, and if she was “into some freaky [expletive]” after breaking up with an ex and seeing someone new, Cruz said.

Coworkers started noticing, too, overhearing some of those comments. One of them told her that Jones had bragged to him about watching her location from the truck GPS, which Cruz later reported in her complaint.

The NJ Transit investigation

Cruz said that after enduring this for more than four years, she tried to report the matter to NJ Transit’s human resources department.

She called HR in February and March of 2022, according to phone records obtained by NorthJersey.com, but said she never got calls back.

Her coworkers kept encouraging her to report the incidents, and in April 2023 she filed a five-page complaint with NJ Transit’s EEO office.

“I feel extremely vulnerable, paranoid, and violated constantly even at a distance from him,” she wrote of Jones in the complaint, obtained by NorthJersey.com. “I work the second shift, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., by myself. I am constantly afraid of him showing up where I am.”

Naeem Din, NJ Transit’s chief EEO officer, conducted the first intake interview with Cruz, then assigned LeShawn Pruitt in his department to handle the remainder of the investigation.

Five months later, Cruz received a letter from Din substantiating her claim that Jones violated the agency’s sexual harassment policy, which states that NJ Transit is "committed" to enforcing a "zero-tolerance policy."

The letter didn’t say what Jones’ punishment would be, and Din would not tell Cruz what — if any — consequence Jones might face. But in January 2024 — three months after her claim was substantiated — Jones reported to NJ Transit’s Newark headquarters and was gone for a few days before returning to supervising, Cruz said.

‘How can I be assured I’m safe?’

After the investigation, Cruz emailed Din and Pruitt several times asking if Jones was barred from contacting her, and voiced concern about what assurances NJ Transit could provide to ensure she and other coworkers who cooperated in the investigation would be safe working with Jones.

“I hear from the guys he’s already starting to target them and as far as I go I still work second shift alone, with him having full access to my location,” Cruz wrote in an email in October 2023.

“In the event it was decided the suspension was all that was needed, how can I be assured I’m safe now?" she asked Pruitt in a separate email. "How was a very small corrective action such as that fair for the years of harassment, stalking, and intimidation from him while someone can be caught with a phone and be out for 30 days?"

Din replied that “appropriate action was taken” and if another incident occurs or if any retaliation takes place to report it.

Cruz said she tried to take her case to the state’s Division on Civil Rights, but the matter was declined because it only takes on cases within 180 days of the last incident of discrimination, which had already elapsed by the time NJ Transit’s investigation concluded and the presumed suspension took place.

Cruz also sought help from NJ Transit’s employee assistance program and went to therapy to manage the anxiety and depression she experienced from the alleged harassment.

“I still struggle with deep anxiety and will quickly have to practice the coping mechanisms I learned in therapy in the event he calls me, let alone tells me to meet him," Cruz wrote in the original complaint. "Even when Bobby isn’t around I am anxious because I fear him showing up where I am due to my GPS in the truck.”

Cruz said the anxiety only grew when she had to work with Jones again once the investigation ended.

By February 2024, Cruz started looking for a new job. She left NJ Transit in June, giving up a job she had hoped would become her long-time career.

She said she had wanted to leave for years. "I just wasn’t in a position where I could, and I still held out hope that Transit would help in some capacity, even if it was just to move him across the line like to North Jersey or something," Cruz said. "But when that didn’t happen I was like, ‘OK, I’m entirely not protected.’”

A long list of lawsuits, settlements

Cruz's experience likely mirrors that of other NJ Transit employees who haven’t publicized their accusations through the public civil and criminal court systems, said Nancy Erika Smith, a Montclair-based attorney who has represented multiple NJ Transit employees in similar circumstances.

Smith has also represented clients in other cases of national significance, including Gretchen Carlson in the sexual harassment case against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.

“She’s not alone," Smith said of Cruz. "And many of those other victims will turn into cases because they give you no choice," Smith said of NJ Transit. "If they had just fired the harasser, we’d still have a good worker. Instead we have a liability.”

In the last three years, NorthJersey.com has reported on 11 lawsuits involving 20 male and female NJ Transit employees across rail, bus and police departments who have filed cases — some of which were settled — accusing coworkers of sexual harassment, sexual assault, racism and retaliation.

The 20 plaintiffs also accused NJ Transit of doing little or nothing to protect them. In almost all the cases, the accused continued to work at NJ Transit, and had little or no consequences. And the accusers had to work with their alleged harassers during and after EEO investigations.

That was the case for a rail car cleaner who sued in 2021 after her complaint of sexual harassment by her male supervisor was substantiated and was told he would be assigned a different shift than hers and that he would have to comply with a “no contact” order — but he continued to show up on the same shift as her, according to court documents.

In another case in 2021, six female bus drivers alleged that an NJ Transit bus supervisor masturbated in front of them, stalked them, forced his genitals on them, and forcibly touched their private parts while on the job.

He remained employed by NJ Transit until five days after NorthJersey.com published an article about the allegations and 10 days after four of the women filed the first lawsuit — years after multiple complaints about him were made, according to court documents.

He was hired at NJ Transit in 2007, after being fired a year prior by the Hudson County Corrections Department, where he was also accused of sexual harassment and assault, leading to a $2 million settlement.

Since the first high-profile harassment case at NJ Transit was settled in 2009, NorthJersey.com has tracked eight lawsuits brought by NJ Transit employees accusing coworkers of harassment and retaliation. State taxpayers have had to pay for $17.7 million in settlements. That doesn’t include the costs for NJ Transit’s attorneys, and there are probably many more cases, Smith said.

“Our tax dollars and the settlements is the beginning of it," Smith said. "What do we pay those law firms? What do we pay the (attorneys general) who oversee this crap?"

"And we pay the lawyers who defend the harassers,” Smith said.

Smith’s first settlement with NJ Transit was in 2016, a case that involved seven black employees accusing the agency of covering up racism, paying black employees less than white counterparts, and retaliation.

The settlement required the agency to have an ombudsman, conduct a comprehensive cultural assessment and other conditions to try to change the culture, but in the 12 years since, Smith isn’t convinced a change is coming any time soon.

In 1994 the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Lehmann versus Toys ‘R’ Us that "employers must take prompt and effective remedial action," Smith noted. "Employers have an obligation to provide women with a workplace free of sexual harassment."

“NJ Transit does neither and nothing ever happens because the same people are always in control,” she said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit worker files harassment complaint in latest lawsuit