Brooklyn Councilman Vincent Gentile's autistic ex-aide accuses staffers of torment

New York Daily News ^ | December 6, 2016 | Erin Durkin and Victoria Bekiempis

[GuavaCheesePuff]

A legislative aide with Asperger's Syndrome endured so much humiliation in Brooklyn City Councilman Vincent Gentile's office — including decapitated teddy bears left on his desk — that he had to quit, a $10 million lawsuit alleges.

Michael Bistreich, Gentile's former legislation and budget director, claims he was "subjected to degrading and humiliating discrimination because he is autistic" during his nearly 2½ years with the pol.

The discrimination was "perpetrated by Council Member Gentile and his senior staff, including (former chief of staff John) Mancuso," the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, charges.

Bistreich, for example, disclosed "he identified with and emotionally valued objects, including stuffed animals," the suit says.

[ConservativeWebServant]

Having several friends with Aspbergers’-like behaviors, I really don’t give a crap what the DSM-V says. People with these characteristics experience the world differently from the majority of others, and targeting their vulnerabilities is just as cowardly when it’s done to them as when it’s done to you.

Those of us who are strong have a responsibility to to protect and uplift those who are weak, not victimize them further.

You are a reprehensible person.

[AppyPappy]

Yeah and we never went to the moon either.

[LambSlave]

You don’t know or understand me or my motives. I grew up with those “symptoms” and the idiot shrinks thought I had all kinds of developmental disabilities, fortunately for me while still a teen I went in the Army my drill instructor and others “tormented” me every day and mocked me, so I rapidly learned to fight, pull my head out of my a**, be more assertive, and more extroverted, and very rapidly become a very different, well adjusted person and have a wonderful life. Friends, with the same symptoms, who were not so fortunate, who instead went to shrinks are still living in their fragile make-believe private hells. Those of us who are strong have the responsibility to make weak men strong; I agree we have the responsibility to protect women and children.