A woman who once worked as director of Cambridge’s police review board has been awarded $4.5 million by a jury that found the city retaliated against her after she filed a discrimination complaint in 1998.
Malvina Monteiro was one of several women who filed gender and race discrimination complaints against the city in the 1990s. Monteiro claimed that her boss then retaliated against her, stripping her of important duties and eventually firing her in 2003.
A jury in Middlesex Superior Court awarded Monteiro a little more than $1 million in compensatory damages and $3.5 million in punitive damages.
After the verdict, Monteiro’s lawyer, Ellen J. Zucker of Boston, said, “Our anti-discrimination laws do not mean much if people are afraid that they will be punished for raising concerns.”
Co-counsel Laura R. Studen, also of Boston, said the jury saw through the city’s attempt to create “a false and demeaning portrait of Ms. Monteiro.”
