A Muslim sergeant at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office says leadership retaliated against him after he asked to keep his beard for religious reasons. Now, a jury will decide whether to hold the sheriff liable in a trial set for next week.
Sohail Kiyani, a Pakistani-American sergeant who has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since 2005, filed the lawsuit against Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in December 2024 alleging wrongful discrimination. He said that he had requested an exemption to the agency’s mandatory shaving rule twice for both religious and medical reasons, and though the Sheriff’s Office did eventually allow him to keep the beard, he faced severe retaliation as a result: His superiors reassigned him from Wellington to Belle Glade as “punishment,” launched an internal affairs investigation against him, and did not promote him to lieutenant despite the fact that he ranked first on the objective component of a promotional exam, according to a complaint.
Kiyani said that his experience is part of a broader culture of retaliation against those who speak up against the Sheriff’s Office, with the promotional exam used against him as a form of punishment. Leadership all the way up to Bradshaw had knowledge of the situation, Kiyani said, and his legal team has sought to depose the sheriff, something Bradshaw’s attorneys are fighting.
“They felt I spoke back and I stood up for my rights, legal rights, and they had no choice but to approve it,” the sergeant told the Sun Sentinel. “That’s when they retaliated.”
The Sheriff’s Office has rejected Kiyani’s allegations of discrimination, saying his chain of command had legitimate reasons to investigate, transfer and avoid promoting him.
The case moved forward in August after Judge Donald Middlebrooks denied a defense motion for summary judgment, or early dismissal, a move Kiyani’s attorney, Salman Ravala, described as rare for the judge and a “big achievement.” The jury trial is set to begin Monday.
Kiyani’s conflict with the Sheriff’s Office began in December 2021 when he first requested permission to keep his beard, following a temporary allowance of beards for a Santa look-alike contest, according to the complaint. In January, Col. Tony Araujo denied Kiyani’s request.
Months later, in September 2022, Araujo again emphasized the beard policy, sending out an email stating, “Yesterday I witnessed an unshaven deputy. You bet, I took care of it. Again … grooming, equipment/uniform care/cleanliness, and our driving seem to be reoccurring themes as does the occasional negligence of duty. Where are the sgt’s on all this … the Lts? We are not going to look like WPBPD! Get the word out, my tolerances are lessening, and so should yours!”
Kiyani did not contest the decision at the time. But a year later, in August 2023, he tried a second time to request an exemption, submitting a formal request to the Labor Division citing his religious beliefs as well as a dermatological condition. He told the Sun Sentinel that he had, by that point, witnessed several occasions in which deputies had been allowed beards for other reasons.
The alleged retaliation was “immediate,” Kiyani’s complaint states. Six days after his request, a lieutenant began asking him about the fact that he used a radio to “log in” to his shift instead of his laptop, which prevented the lieutenant from locating his patrol car. Kiyani said he had been doing so for months without issue due to a technical glitch on his laptop. The lieutenant also told Kiyani that it had been rumored that he “hangs out at his house all day long and does not respond to calls for service.”
A month later, in late September, PBSO granted Kiyani’s beard accommodation request as long as he kept it “neatly trimmed,” the complaint said.
But over the next few days, Kiyani began to suspect he was under investigation. He noticed a different lieutenant’s car parked outside of his house and believed that his movements were being tracked over GPS, according to the complaint. He emailed the Labor Department, saying he was concerned that his superiors were retaliating against him due to his request.
Two hours after his email, PBSO launched a formal internal investigation into Kiyani over the log-ins. The investigation later closed with no action, saying Kiyani had been “informally counseled.”
Then, in early October, his captain, Nichole Addazio, informed him that he was being transferred to Belle Glade, widely considered “the least desirable location in the county,” the complaint states, adding that transfers to Belle Glade are “commonly understood within the ranks to constitute a form of punishment for those who irk their superiors.”
The transfer offered less overtime and was essentially a pay cut, the complaint said. Kiyani has remained in Belle Glade ever since. The same month as the transfer, he filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for discrimination.
Six months later, in April 2024, Kiyani took the promotional exam with 41 other deputies. Despite placing first when taking into account his written exam, seniority and education, Kiyani’s rank dropped to 18th, too low for a promotion, because of a more subjective “assessment” component, according to the complaint. Those who scored higher than him were mainly Caucasian and not Muslim.
Two of the people in charge of assessing applicants during the exam had been named in Kiyani’s EEOC complaint, including Addazio.
PBSO’s ranking process is “shrouded in secrecy,” the complaint states, adding that the agency “has a history of failing to promote minorities and utilizing the arbitrary assessment to control the promotional process.”
When Kiyani sought to inspect the rating sheets that led to his low score, he said the Sheriff’s Office fought to keep them secret. He ended up succeeding and reviewing the sheets in July 2024, and discovered “no correllation” between his ratings on various components and his final score. In doing so, Kiyani said he became the first PBSO deputy to successfully examine his own rating sheets.
The Sheriff’s Office has denied Kiyani’s allegations, saying in its motion for summary judgment that his negative experiences had nothing to do with his beard. Rather, the motion argued that he was legitimately investigated over his log-in method and for “spending an excessive amount of time at home during the workday.” His performance on the assessment was similar to how he had performed in prior years, the Sheriff’s Office added.
“PBSO had legitimate, non-discriminatory, and non-retaliatory reasons for all of its employment decisions,” the motion said, adding that there is no “causal link” between Kiyani’s request and PBSO’s actions.
The Sheriff’s Office also argued in the motion that Kiyani’s chain of command did not have any knowledge of his religious exemption request at the time and therefore could not have been acting out of retaliation over the request. But Kiyani later obtained internal emails through a public records request that showed Addazio and other supervisors forwarding his request to Frank DeMario, the former chief deputy of PBSO directly under Bradshaw, the same day he made the request in August. The emails also referenced a meeting with Bradshaw.
Judge Middlebrooks denied PBSO’s motion for summary judgment, saying the argument that Kiyani lacks evidence of discrimination was “unpersuasive.” He also criticized the Sheriff’s Office for failing to provide the emails during discovery.
“Once more, I note that Defendant has again failed to offer an explanation for why the emails directly implicating the Sheriff and Chief DeMario were supplied in late July, long after the close of discovery,” Middlebrooks wrote in a recent order.
Kiyani’s lawsuit is the second he has filed against his own agency alleging mistreatment. In September 2024, he sued Bradshaw and several Sheriff’s Office deputies over an “unlawful arrest,” alleging that he was wrongfully jailed on a battery charge following a custody dispute with the mother of his child at his Wellington home. During that incident, he said that he overheard one of the deputies who responded call him a “terrorist.” Palm Beach County prosecutors later no-filed the criminal case against Kiyani, who had it expunged from his record.
Ravala, Kiyani’s attorney, said the unlawful arrest lawsuit was “completely, entirely separate” from the discrimination case about to go to trial. The Sheriff’s Office has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which is awaiting a judge’s ruling.
In the discrimination case, Kiyani is seeking compensation for lost wages and benefits, emotional distress and reputational harm, as well as for the Sheriff’s Office to “institute policies, practices, and training that provide protection from discrimination against employees.” He did not name an exact monetary amount.
“We hope that the outcome of this case will send a message to the police department that discrimination and retaliation is not going to be tolerated,” Ravala said. “Especially for those that serve the public, who deserve the protection of the law just as much as any other citizen.”
Attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office did not return calls or emails requesting comment.
Teri Barbera, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, declined to comment, saying she had not heard of the lawsuit and that the Sheriff’s Office does not comment on pending litigation.
