Amanjeet Sandhu
Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from a lawsuit NYPD Officer Maria Delacruz filed in Manhattan Supreme Court; they are one side’s account in active civil litigation. They were never admitted by Amanjeet Sandhu, never criminally charged, and never adjudicated in court. Sandhu did not return the New York Post’s call seeking comment, the NYPD said it had not yet been served with the suit, and no claim in it has been tested before a court.
Introduction
Amanjeet Sandhu, an NYPD captain who commanded Transit District 1 on the Upper West Side beginning in January 2023, is the lead defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed Wednesday, October 21, 2026 in Manhattan Supreme Court by Officer Maria Delacruz, 33, who alleges he subjected her to months of sexually explicit comments, forced one-on-one assignments, and unwanted physical advances after she refused him — and that a jealous clique of fellow officers turned on her once the precinct rumor mill decided she was sleeping with her boss . The suit, filed by lawyer Eric Sanders, also names Deputy Chief Steven Mauriello of the Manhattan Transit Bureau, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and other department figures, and seeks unspecified damages .
Background Information
Delacruz alleges Sandhu took over the Transit District 1 command in January 2023 and, by March of that year, was regularly assigning her to be his driver — putting a subordinate alone with a supervisor whose intentions, she says, he had already made plain: the suit claims he “declared his love” for her and “expressed his desire to become her lover rather than remain her supervisor” . Delacruz, a mother of an 8-year-old son, told The Post she kept quiet at first out of fear of retaliation: “I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could go to,” she said in an on-record interview . Sandhu earned $222,138 in 2025, according to payroll figures The Post cited .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Throughout 2023, the suit alleges, Sandhu “increasingly directed sexually explicit comments toward her” — remarking on her “breasts, buttocks, face, eyes and body,” referring to her as a Latina with large buttocks, and telling her, “If I was your man, I would slap that ass all the time”; when she stood to leave his office he would say, “That ass is huge!” . The suit says he suggested she remove her bulletproof vest and then stared at her chest while biting his lip, and described dreams in which he was having sex with her .
The allegations then turn physical: on one occasion she opened his office door to find him with his pants halfway down — the suit says he was in white underwear and a tank top and told her to come inside; on a drive he attempted “to kiss her against her wishes,” and she pushed him back saying, “No, you are married. Are you crazy?” — after which, the suit states, he said he would leave his wife to be with her . At the 2023 Patrol Borough Midtown South Christmas party at New Rochelle’s Glen Island Harbour Club, the suit alleges he grabbed her left arm, pulled her toward him, and said, “You’re coming with me tonight,” insisting they leave and sleep together, gripping her arm painfully as she refused .
The harassment is alleged to have followed her out of the command: in September 2024, after her transfer, Sandhu sent her a disappearing WhatsApp message featuring a pornographic video, wrote “I think I should buy you a dildo. How many dildos do you own?”, repeatedly asked explicit questions about her sex life, and in late 2024 sent a photo of a woman wearing a thong with her breasts exposed, according to the suit . Delacruz says she objected repeatedly — “Enough. Stop asking those questions. That’s my personal business” — and insists she never had a sexual relationship with Sandhu .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The suit describes a precinct that punished the wrong party: by summer 2024, sexual rumors about Delacruz and Sandhu “had contributed to serious workplace hostility,” including a locker room confrontation in which another female officer — finding Delacruz half-naked — accused her of “f—ing the captain” . When coworkers brought the rumors to Deputy Chief Steven Mauriello, Delacruz confronted him on July 17, 2024 and says he answered, “I’m not the only one saying that. Everyone here thinks that” . The suit alleges Mauriello then pressured her to keep the harassment out of her Internal Affairs Bureau interview about the locker room incident — “If you just keep it to what happened in the locker room, I will make sure you get transferred to wherever you want to go,” she says he told her — and she took the transfer without reporting him . Mauriello did not return The Post’s message seeking comment . The suit casts itself as the latest chapter in a series of NYPD sexual-misconduct scandals it recites: the Jeffrey Maddrey overtime-for-sex allegations, on which the Justice Department opened an investigation without charges being filed and which Maddrey denied, and Inspector Jeremy Scheublin, who was fired after being arrested on felony charges including attempted rape of a subordinate and has pleaded not guilty .
Current Status
The litigation is at its beginning: the NYPD says it had not yet been served with the Delacruz lawsuit and will respond once it is, no answer has been filed on the public record described by The Post, and Sandhu did not return the outlet’s call seeking comment . No criminal charge exists against anyone named, no departmental discipline against Sandhu or Mauriello has been reported, and The Post’s account does not state whether Sandhu remains in command or on active duty. Delacruz, now assigned to Manhattan North Patrol Borough in Harlem, says she went public so other female officers come forward: “I want to make sure that girls are not getting sexually harassed and feel safe to speak up” .
Impact on Their Career/Life
As of publication, the documented career consequences fall on the officer, not the captain: she is the one who left Transit District 1, first pressured out of the command and then, by her account, silenced out of an Internal Affairs interview, while Sandhu’s command, rank, and $222,138 salary went unremarked by any discipline in the record The Post describes. What Sandhu now carries is a public civil complaint that quotes his own alleged words back to him in the city’s paper of record, filed under his name alongside the department’s leadership. Whether it ends in a settlement, a verdict, or a dismissal — and whether the NYPD’s response, once served, produces any departmental reckoning — is what the next entries in this record will turn on.