The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office did not retaliate against a Muslim sergeant over his request to maintain a beard, a federal jury decided Thursday.
The verdict came after less than three hours of deliberation following a three-day trial, during which jurors heard testimony from the sergeant, Sohail Kiyani, several members of PBSO’s top brass, and Sheriff Ric Bradshaw himself, who denied having any knowledge or recollection of Kiyani’s request.
Kiyani, who is Pakistani-American, had filed the lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office in 2024, arguing that he was discriminated against and faced retaliation over his request to maintain a beard.
The sergeant had made two requests keep his beard: once in 2021, which a colonel denied, and again in 2023, after which he said he faced a series of retaliatory actions, including a disciplinary review over his laptop use, a poor assessment on an examination, and a transfer from Wellington to Belle Glade, widely considered a “dumping ground” and a punishment for deputies, according to his attorneys, Isidro Garcia and Salman Ravala, as well as testimony from PBSO deputies themselves. Kiyani also complained to the Labor Department and filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint about the alleged retaliation.
The Sheriff’s Office argued that Kiyani was not transferred or investigated because of his request but rather due to performance issues, saying he spent inordinate amounts of time at his Wellington home during his shifts.
“PBSO was holding Sgt. Kiyani accountable for his own conduct, not retaliating against him,” Suhail Morales, the attorney for the Sheriff’s Office, said in closing remarks Thursday, arguing that Kiyani “blamed everyone but himself.”
In order to award Kiyani damages, the jury had to determine that his beard request and subsequent complaints were protected, that PBSO undertook “adverse employment actions” as a result, and that the adverse actions were because of his protected activity. The jury concluded that Kiyani’s actions were protected but PBSO’s actions were not adverse.
Laptop investigation
Kiyani made his first accommodation request in 2021, which Col. Tony Arraujo denied, according to Kiyani’s complaint. Then, in August 2023, he submitted another request, this time to the Labor Department. Days after he submitted his request, his attorneys said, the Sheriff’s Office began looking into his failure to use his laptop to “log in” at the start of his shifts as well as rumors that he was spending excessive amounts of time at home.
Kiyani began to notice that he was being surveiled by various PBSO lieutenants, according to his complaint, and sent the Labor Department an email about his concerns over retaliation due to his beard request. Hours after the email, the Sheriff’s Office launched a formal internal investigation into Kiyani’s laptop use and time at home.
Kiyani said he had been using the radio to log in because his laptop had been malfunctioning for months, and the Sheriff’s Office had taken no action until he submitted his request for a beard. Several PBSO employees have had similar issues with their laptops but were not investigated, his attorney Garcia said.
But the Sheriff’s Office said they launched the investigation over legitimate concerns. They found that Kiyani had repeatedly logged into his 4 a.m. shift hours after it began, sometimes not until the afternoon, while GPS data showed that he would sometimes spend hours in his neighborhood before getting back on the road.
“This isn’t retaliation, this was a sergeant failing to do his job,” Morales said.
The internal investigation later came back with no action taken.
Transfer to Belle Glade
The most significant punishment Kiyani faced, his attorneys argued, was his transfer to the far west city of Belle Glade, a position they and some current and former Sheriff’s Office employees described as “career suicide,” “a graveyard,” a “dumping ground,” and “Siberia” throughout the trial.
Kiyani had informed Labor Department over email that he suspected he was under surveillance and feared he was being retaliated against due to his beard request. Six days later, his captain, Nichole Addazio, informed him that he would be transferred to Belle Glade.
Kiyani said in his complaint that the transfer harmed his reputation and constituted a pay cut because there are fewer overtime opportunities. He has remained there since, while other sergeants sent there were transferred away.
Others agreed with Kiyani’s assessment. One retired lieutenant, Rey Alonso, testified Wednesday that when PBSO deputies would take a stand against their supervisors, it was common practice to say “what do you want to do, send me to Belle Glade?”
When Alonso chose to transfer to Belle Glade because he had grown up there, he said fellow deputies questioned him. While there, he often received sergeants who had been transferred under “less than favorable circumstances.”
“My task was to do what I could to make them at least a little less miserable,” Alonso said.
The Sheriff’s Office acknowledged that Kiyani’s transfer arose out of his supervisors’ dissatisfaction with him, but said it was due to his own performance issues, not his beard request. Mainly, he had “distractions” in Wellington because he lived there, his major, Eric Coleman testified, an issue his transfer to Belle Glade would resolve.
The Sheriff’s Office also maintained that the transfer to Belle Glade was not a harsh punishment as Kiyani had claimed, saying he had the same benefits and no actual change in salary.
Sheriff Bradshaw testifies
Another issue throughout the trial was the extent to which Kiyani’s superiors were aware of his beard request.
The Sheriff’s Office had initially argued in court filings that his chain of command was not aware of his beard request when it began investigating him and therefore could not have been acting out of retaliation. But Kiyani later obtained emails showing supervisors immediately forwarding his request up the chain of command in August. One supervisor referenced meeting with Sheriff Bradshaw.
On Wednesday, Bradshaw testified that he had never met Kiyani and remembered nothing about the beard request.
“I don’t remember any conversations with anybody about this issue,” he said.
Other Sheriff’s Office supervisors acknowledged receiving the beard request but said they had paid it little mind and that it played no role in their treatment of Kiyani. Coleman said he and others had already been discussing loosening the beard policy due to hiring challenges.
A year after Kiyani’s request, the Sheriff’s Office changed its official policy to allow beards.
Kiyani told the South Florida Sun Sentinel he was surprised and disappointed by the verdict Thursday.
“I’m disappointed that the jury did not think being singled out and transferred out of my district days after my accommodation request and complaint, accompanied by actual documented financial loss, rose to the level of an adverse action under the law,” he said. “At the same time, I’m glad I was able to present the case and stand up for my rights.”
Morales, the attorney for PBSO, declined to comment.
Kiyani’s lawsuit was the second of two cases he filed against PBSO 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. Prosecutors later dropped the criminal charges, but the lawsuit remains pending.
