Friday, August 22, 2003
Robert E. Kessler

A Bay Shore woman who has an order of protection against her husband says the last person she thought would harass her was a Suffolk County deputy sheriff assigned to the department's domestic abuse unit.

But that is what happened, Valerie Nogueras, 40, says in a civil rights lawsuit recently filed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip.

Nogueras says in the suit that Deputy Sheriff Sgt. Nicholas Migliore offered her money and told her that other women had taken off their clothes for him. He also called or showed up at her house unannounced several times over six weeks and e-mailed her pornographic photographs, according to the suit.

"It's outrageous and illegal for a person in his position to take advantage of a woman he knew was particularly vulnerable," Nogueras' attorney, Philip Taubman of Manhattan, said yesterday.

Migliore could not be reached for comment. Sources familiar with the case said Migliore has no previous history of complaints and is still assigned to the domestic abuse unit.

In June 2002, Nogueras and her husband got into a fight and she obtained an order of protection against him, according to court papers. Her husband, in turn, filed a domestic abuse compliant against her that was delivered by Migliore, the papers say. Migliore's only role should have been to deliver her husband's complaint, Taubman said.

Yet between June 16 and July 28, Migliore repeatedly phoned and made visits to Nogueras' home and offered to investigate the background and credit ratings of any men she might meet, according to the court papers.

Migliore continued to contact her even after Nogueras said she complained to the internal affairs bureau of the sheriff's department, the paper said.

Besides suing the sheriff's department and Migliore for unspecified damages, Nogueras is also suing the Suffolk County Police Department, claiming police gave Migliore confidential information about her.

Undersheriff Walter Denzler and Assistant Suffolk County Attorney Richard Dunne, who is defending the case for the county, both declined to comment yesterday because Nogueras' allegations were being investigated by the Suffolk County district attorney. A spokesman for the Suffolk County Police Department, Sonny Di Stefano, also declined to comment, as did Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota.