STATEN ISLAND — A priest and school principal allegedly unleashed tirades of vulgar, racist, sexist and homophobic rants daily to his staff, according to a lawsuit.
Father Michael Reilly, principal of St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School, created a hostile environment for staff, calling his workers "f-gs," "tw-ts" and a "vodka sh--tng b--ch," according to the suit first reported by the New York Daily News.
Reilly, along with his "henchmen" vice-principal Robert Richard and Dean of Men Greg Manos, also tried to kick out elderly teachers, repeatedly called a guidance counselor a pedophile and discriminated against all three defendant's religion with their vulgar language, according to the suit.
"This didn't happen yesterday, or six months ago, it's been going on for a long time," said Michael Dowd, lawyer for Lawrence Boliak, Maureen Smith and Thomas Rodes, who filed the suit.
"All three are devout Catholics and find it intolerable, as a Catholic, to listen to Reilly's rants."
Reilly referred to women as "b--ches" and "tw-ts," and students and faculty members that he suspected were homosexual as "f-gs" and "f--gots," the lawsuit said.
He threatened to kick one African-American teacher "back to the jungle" and called an elderly teacher "a vodka sh--ting b--ch that we don't need," according to the suit.
"He routinely called an administrator at the school a 'fat fa--ot.' Father Reilly hardly ever uttered a sentence without the word 'f--k' in it," Dowd wrote in the suit.
"He referred to a sick female teacher by saying, 'How did we get stuck with a piece of sh-t like this?'"
In one case, when a teacher battling cancer said he needed to take time off to undergo chemotherapy, Reilly responded "Doesn't he know his life is over? What's he going to do next? Come in on a gurney with an I.V.? I'll have to kick him to the f--king curb."
Reilly, Manos and Richard also allegedly called Boliak a pedophile and Manos wrote a letter saying he should never be around children again, the suit said.
The Archdiocese of New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told the Daily News the lawsuit stemmed from a October 2015 incident in which Boliak allegedly pulled down a former male student's pants.
The suit alleges that Boliak was talking with four men in his office, two of whom previously graduated, when Manos came in and screamed at the alumni to get out.
One of the men was about to attack Manos when Boliak reached for his shirt to hold him back but missed and pulled his gym shorts down instead, according to the suit.
The Archdiocese told the Daily News that nobody called Boliak a pedophile and the allegations about Reilly's language were "absurd."
