Queens Assemblywoman Vivian Cook is a corrupt racist who tossed around the N-word, degraded a biracial employee and hired her own grandson for a low-show job, an explosive lawsuit charges.
Ex-legislative aide Gail Palmer alleges that the ethically challenged and often-angry lawmaker would smash things on the floor while “frequently cursing at and excoriating” terrified staffers, who kept silent because they needed their jobs.
The 80-year-old Democrat often called her half a dozen employees “motherf- -kers” and would make bizarre racial proclamations including, “I’m feeling colored today,” or “I’m feeling n- - -erish,” according to court papers.
The veteran lawmaker, who is black, derided Palmer, whose mother is of African-American and white descent, as a “GeeChee” and “mulatto” after spotting a framed photo of the woman on Palmer’s desk, according to court papers.
“GeeChee” can refer to a coastal population of black people in the South with Creole origins but can also be derogatory slang for those with biracial backgrounds.
Palmer, 66, claims to have repeatedly begged Cook, to no avail, to stop using racial epithets.
“This is my office, I can do whatever the hell I want,” Cook would allegedly say.
“It was degrading,” Palmer said. “She thought it was cute.”
Cook, who also serves as the Queens County Democratic Committee chair, denied using such language to The Post.
Cook didn’t use profanity or racial slurs around white people, or in the Capitol, Palmer said.
“She was a different person in Albany,” Palmer claimed. “I was highly insulted that she would treat our people like this . . . She was an entirely different person when a Caucasian walked into the office.”
Cook, who has served in her southeast Queens seat for 28 years, could be sweet or turn inexplicably violent, Palmer alleged in a $1.5 million discrimination lawsuit she filed in Queens Supreme Court last week.
When an employee told Cook that staffers had been listening to Christmas carols in the Jamaica office during the holidays, an enraged Cook picked up the radio and slammed it to the floor, Palmer said.
“You never knew what you were coming to work to,” Palmer told The Post. “You woke up with knots in your stomach.”
Palmer was shocked at the difference between Cook’s polished social persona and her low-life behavior as a boss, repeatedly calling Palmer a “whore” for wearing sleeveless dresses on hot summer days.
“I didn’t realize elected officials can do anything they wanted to do and get away with it — how she conducted her office, how she spoke to people, how people just sat there and accepted what was taking place,” Palmer said.
Cook has skirted scandal for years.
A nonprofit she founded, the Rockaway Boulevard Local Development Corp., came under federal investigation after The Post exposed its misspending of public money, including more than $2.5 million from the Port Authority.
The group had used some of the cash to buy a vacant lot on Rockaway Boulevard, a few blocks from Cook’s district office, with a plan to build a business-resource center that never materialized.
The charity folded in 2010, but a few years later it began renting out the land as a private parking lot for trucks and construction equipment. Cook told The Post in 2015 that the money would go to pay off back taxes but provided few specifics.
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