St. Pat's Usher Is a 'Perv' Lady Guard's Fury, by Dan Mangan, New York Post, March 1, 2007

St. Pat's Usher Is a 'Perv'
Lady Guard's Fury

By Dan Mangan
New York Post
March 1, 2007

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03012007/news/regionalnews/
st__pats_usher_is_a_perv_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm

March 1, 2007 -- Police are investigating claims that a St. Patrick's Cathedral usher exposed himself to a female security guard in the church and then asked for sexual favors, The Post has learned.

And to add insult to injury, says outraged guard Esther Jafar, when she complained last week to St. Pat's security chief, he screamed at her and ordered that she not work there again.

Esther Jafar says a St. Patrick's usher asked her for sex.

"What I had to put up with at the church, nobody should have to put up with," said Jafar, 27, a Brooklyn mother of three, who since then has not been given any work by her security company.

The church suspended the usher - whom Jafar knows only as "José" - and is probing the claim, said New York Arch diocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling.

An NYPD detective confirmed that he interviewed Jafar about her claim that José on two sepa rate occasions exposed himself to her. "It's an ongoing investigation," he said.

Jafar said the most recent exposure was early last month, when the usher accosted her as she was leaving a locker room, pushed her into a locker and then "grabbed my butt."

After she shoved him off, she said, "He goes, 'Look at this.' "

Jafar said he exposed himself to her and began to fondle himself. He then asked her to perform oral sex on him, she said.

"I grabbed my bag and ran up the stairs," she said.

Jafar began working for Summit Security Services in February 2006. Last September, the company - which did not return a call for comment - assigned her to a post at the Gothic Fifth Avenue cathedral, where guards work under a contract with St. Pat's.

Jafar said a number of ushers - who are all male church employees - harassed her from the beginning by showing her cellphone pictures "of men and women having sex," as well as by gratuitously touching her.

In October, after avoiding one usher, he "told me that if I ignore him the next time he'll kiss me and shove his tongue down my throat," Jafar said. That usher, she said, was reprimanded after another guard overheard the comment and informed a supervisor.

In November, the usher's superior, José, began "asking me personal questions like if I'm married, and if I'm happy."

One day, José showed her cellphone photos of his daughters, and then said, "I'm going to show you something else," Jafar recalled. He then displayed a photo of a penis he claimed was his own.

Jafar said he apologized after she complained to him.

dan.mangan@nypost.com