Pictured: Onondaga County courthouse Credit: Julie McMahon

Former Onondaga County prosecutor Cayley Young accused a fellow prosecutor and supervisor of sexual assault and harassment and others in the district attorney’s office of retaliation and harassment. 

Young filed the complaint Friday in New York Supreme Court, accusing former Assistant District Attorney Shaun Chase of sexually assaulting her. She accused Assistant District Attorney Alphonse Williams of retaliatory harassment. 

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick shrugged off Young’s lawsuit as a “bullshit story” and a “pathetic shakedown.” He characterized what happened between Chase and Young a “consensual hook up” and referred to Young as “emotionally unstable.”

“I’m not opposed to interoffice romance,” said Fitzpatrick, adding that multiple prosecutors from his offices had gone on to marry each other. “I can’t stop Charles Darwin and human evolution from occurring.”

Williams also denied Young’s allegations. Chase did not respond to an email request for comment and didn’t return a message left at Cerio Law Offices, where he now works.

Young wrote in the lawsuit she first reported Chase to a supervisor in August 2022. Chase brought Young to a double homicide site. After Young’s peers learned Chase had included her on the case, they told her they thought it was strange, she told Central Current. 

When Chase popped into Young’s office to inform her he wanted to loop her in on the case, Young worked into the conversation that she was familiar with the crime scene, East Syracuse, because she had lived there briefly with her fiancé, she said. 

“I thought maybe that would get him to, like, back off,” Young said. “And it didn’t work.”

Young raised her concerns to fellow prosecutor Anthony Mangovski, her supervisor. 

“Mango got upset with me, offered me some whiskey to calm down because I was hysterical, and then said he would only do something if I went on paper and went to Fitzpatrick directly,” said Young. 

Young said it wasn’t clear what Mangovski meant by “on paper.”

In the months that followed, Chase’s harassment became more blatant, and extended beyond the office, Young alleged. He called her drunk, often late at night. Young began putting Chase on speakerphone when he called her outside of work hours to ensure that her then-fiancé, Doug Eaton II, could hear how Chase spoke to her, she said.

“I don’t know if that’s how DA’s offices work,” Eaton said, “but that’s not how any professional environment that I’ve ever been in worked.”

On Nov. 16, 2022, Young stayed late at work. Chase came by her office and asked her to help “break in the springs on his new office chair,” she wrote in the lawsuit.

Young believed if she let Chase “win,” he would leave her alone, she wrote in the lawsuit. She went into Chase’s office, where he had her close the door, Young wrote. He pulled her onto him and, as he groped her, she could feel his erection through his pants, she said. She pulled herself off him, telling him she couldn’t do it, that she had a fiancé, Young wrote. 

The night before Thanksgiving 2022, Young went to Pastabilities with friends. She was on call for the district attorney’s office, she said. Her friends convinced her to go out to The York. She texted Eaton, who had picked a movie for them to watch, that she’d be home soon. 

Chase was at The York. He insisted on buying her a drink, she wrote in the lawsuit. He told her he wouldn’t tell anybody she was drinking while on call if he bought the drink for her, Young wrote. She eventually let him buy her a martini. They stood in a secluded, unmonitored part of the bar, according to the lawsuit. 

The martini was “oddly salty,” Young said. Then, “everything felt euphoric.” She said she remembers being really hot, and then everything went dark, she said. 

She woke up the next day in a child’s bedroom, naked, she wrote in the lawsuit. Next to her was Chase, clad only in boxers, she wrote. 

“Don’t worry, you enjoyed yourself,” he said, she wrote in the lawsuit. 

Eaton had been waiting on Young all night. When Young didn’t answer repeated calls, Eaton called a non-emergency 911 line, to see if he could get through to the “on call” phone Young was supposed to be monitoring, Young said. 

Eaton drove downtown at about 3:15 a.m. and found Young’s car. Bagged groceries and a purse with Young’s laptop and other valuables were visible in the car, both Young and Eaton said. 

On Thanksgiving morning, while still in bed with Chase, Young called Mangovski from her work phone and said she was with Chase. He coached her on what to tell coworkers, she wrote. 

As friends’ accounts began to fill in the gaps in her memory of the evening, Young grew increasingly alarmed about what had transpired between Chase and herself.

She texted Chase, according to texts she showed Central Current. She told him that she remembered her drink being salty. She told him a friend had seen her kissing Chase near the Museum of Science and Technology. She told him that her fitness tracker ring said her vitals were “basically like I was out cold.”

“Things are adding up in a really fucked up way,” she texted. 

Later, she texted him again, asking if it was possible something had been put into her drink, or both drinks. 

“Wow. I’m just reading all of this and have no idea where to start,” Chase replied, according to texts Young showed Central Current.

Young reported Chase to Mangovski around Nov. 29. Mangovski slammed the door in her face, screaming, angry to be made a witness, she wrote. He later refused to sit with her when she made a report to Fitzpatrick, she wrote. 

When Young eventually sat down to tell Fitzpatrick, she thought he believed her. 

“Whatever happens next, it’s not on you,” Young said Fitzpatrick told her. “That’s my decision on how I want to run this office.” 

Fitzpatrick suspended Chase. 

“Even though I didn’t believe her, I suspended him because I didn’t like the idea of that,” he told Central Current.

In the weeks that followed, attorney Alphonse Williams would mime zipping up his pants whenever he passed Young, she wrote in the lawsuit.

In a statement, Williams denied the allegations. He said it was “heartbreaking” to describe the accusations to the women in his life.

“These types of allegations are extremely dangerous and have historically been weaponized against young Black men across our nation. And in cases such as Emmett Till, have resulted in homicide,” said Williams. “I can only assume that there are people who are upset when they turn on their television and see my nappy hair attached to the amazing work myself and the DA’s office does. However, attempts to tarnish my reputation and image will not work.”

In her lawsuit, Young wrote that Assistant District Attorney Nicole Venator had previously reported Chase for a sexual relationship he had with an administrative assistant. 

Venator texted Young at the time that when she went into Assistant District Attorney John Centra’s office after Thanksgiving, the men inside made jokes about needing to record their interactions, according to texts Young provided to Central Current. 

Within six weeks of Thanksgiving 2022, Chase and Young resigned from Fitzpatrick’s office. 

Young left the office as she struggled with her mental health in the wake of the alleged assault, she said. Young felt as though the entire office, her friends and colleagues, were aware of what had happened, she said. 

Young described frequent moments spent muttering to herself in shock, and nights spent waking up screaming in bed, believing the fiancé beside her was instead Chase. Young said she still has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from the alleged incident.

A criminal investigation into the assault ended in June 2023. The Syracuse Police Department investigated Young’s allegation against Chase and turned evidence over to the Oneida County District Attorney’s office. Young and Laurie Lisi, the special prosecutor, decided not to press charges, said Young and former Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara. 

The case would have been difficult to prosecute, Young said. She had not had a rape kit done and did not remember what had happened between the night at The York and waking up next to Chase. Lisi and Young mutually agreed not to pursue charges. 

In the three years since the assault, Young has broken out in hives, lost hair, and struggled to sleep or function without medication. She found out she had lupus in October, she said. The lawsuit alleges that the lupus was brought on by the trauma of the assault. 

The lupus didn’t respond to hydroxychloroquine, the traditional treatment for lupus, Young said. Because of her mental health history, she can’t do biologics, another treatment for lupus. Her only option now, she explained, is a form of low dose chemotherapy. Because it impacts her fertility, she’ll also have to do fertility treatments, said Young. 

On Friday, before filing her lawsuit, she made a demand of Fitzpatrick, she said. Young asked for just over $300,000 to drop the lawsuit, Fitzpatrick said. 

Fitzpatrick maintained that he shouldn’t be sued and said he would pursue counter action against Young, including trying to have her disbarred through the attorney grievance committee.  

“This notion that I’m asleep at the switch or something?” Fitzpatrick said. “How am I supposed to know two people, on the day before Thanksgiving, have a consensual hook up — and again, she doesn’t know what happened — and all this only comes out after she’s told that she’s in a shitload of trouble because she’s drunk and not answering her on call phone.”

The law firm Young worked for, Costello, Cooney and Fearon, has business with the county that Young said she was not aware of. The county contacted the law firm, which then told her she had to resign, wait to file the lawsuit or not file, she said. 

She resigned. 

“Everyone’s questioning why I waited,” said Young. “It’s because I didn’t know how bad this fallout was.” 

Managing Editor Chris Libonati contributed reporting to this story. 

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...