The Bromley-Heath Tenant Management Corporation (TMC) has “resolved” an alleged assault case where one TMC employee allegedly hit another employee during a meeting with a prospective tenant, Jeffrey Denner, attorney for the alleged victim told the Gazette.
According to a police report, TMC employee Ines Delvalle-Nelson claims that on Feb. 10, TMC Property Manager Cheryl Patterson walked into Delvalle-Nelson’s office while she was meeting with a prospective tenant, ordered the people in the room to close their eyes, and struck Delvalle-Nelson on the side of the head.
The alleged incident follows an investigation last year of TMC management practices.
Boston Housing Authority (BHA) spokesperson Lydia Agro previously told the Gazette that the BHA was supportive of talks between Delvalle-Nelson and the TMC. The BHA was “hopeful that Bromley-Heath and the complainant can reach a reasonable settlement,” she said at the time.
It is unclear however, if a formal settlement was reached.
Criminal charges were never pressed against Patterson. Delvalle-Nelson’s lawyer, Jeffrey Denner, told the Gazette this week that his client and the TMC have “resolved all issues….Their differences have been worked out.”
Asked by the Gazette, Denner declined to describe the resolution as a “settlement.”
TMC lawyer Mark Burak declined to comment for this article.
Patterson returned to work after a brief suspension following the incident, Agro said. Delvalle-Nelson “chose to move on,” Denner said.
TMC spokesperson David Worrell declined to comment because the TMC does not comment on personnel issues, he said.
Separately, the TMC, a tenant-run management corporation that operates the BHA-owned Bromley-Heath housing development, recently finalized an action plan in response to a civil rights investigation completed last year.
That investigation, spurred by complaints by Latino residents at the housing development, found “no significant discrimination based on race or ethnicity,” according to a report by investigators CVR Associates. But the report did find that “the perception of disparate treatment is very real to a substantial group of people” and reported that some Latino tenants feared the possibility of physical violence by TMC staff.
The TMC disputed a number of the investigation’s findings, including that TMC staff members are physically intimidating.