19 year old files sexual harassment claim against Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell

LaKaya Sinclair, 19 years old has filed a sexual harassment claim against Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell.

Sinclair advised that she first met Flagler-Mitchell at the 2020 mass shooting on Pennsylvania Avenue. In November of 2020 Sinclair advised that she received an explicit photo from Flagler-Mitchell. The explicit photo, Flagler-Mitchell claims was for his wife, not for Sinclair.

Sinclair is asking for Flagler-Mitchell to resign so he does not continue to use his seat and abuse his power.

Flagler-Mitchell has apologized for the incident NDA had even told his wife about what had occurred. Flagler-Mitchell stated that after thinking the incident was behind him, he is now dealing with political rivals using the incident as blackmail against him.

Rochester Police Department Captain Sam Lucyshyn says they were advised of this matter, but the Rochester Police Department is not the agency handling this incident.

Below are the statements regarding the incident from LaKaya Sinclair and Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell.

LaKaya Sinclair’s letter to the Monroe County Legislators:

"Dear County Legislatures,

I am writing this letter to share with you that your colleague County Legislature for Legislative district 29, Ernest Flager-Mitchell, has explicitly sexually harassed me and has sent me an unsolicited photo of his genital. I first met him after being the victim of the Pennsylvania Ave graduation shooting that occurred on September 18th, 2020. A few days later there was a community gathering and he introduced himself to me as the official county legislature for my district. He gave his county legislature business card and told me if I ever needed anything to give him a call. There was also a number of other elected officials and pastors, who also provided their official business cards and said the same thing, if I needed anything to reach out. I reached out for help not to be sexually harassed.

I am writing this so that you are all aware of the type of person he is. I am going public and will be asking for his resignation. No one should be in a position where they turned to their elected official for help and are met with unwanted sexual advances and inappropriate messages. I am only 19 years old. I believe there are other women who are victims of him and I will be pleading with the community to not only support me, but to come forth if this has been their experience with this particular legislature.

I am asking for his resignation so that he does not continue to use his seat and abuse his power and am asking this body to formerly investigate this matter. The fact that he did this to me so swiftly lets me know that he has done this before and as I stated, it is my hope that other women in this community find their voice and come forward to share their stories.

Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell’s statement regarding the incident:

"As a man of faith I believe we all must take responsibility for our actions and I have always tried to do that both in my personal and professional life. In November, I sent a picture intended for my wife to an individual I was working with. I took immediate responsibility for my mistake. I deleted the file, acknowledged the mistake, apologized and hoped I had not offended them. They responded at the time by accepting my apology and assured me that they were not offended. Additionally, I immediately took responsibility for what occurred with my wife, by telling her what had happened and I regret that she is now embarrassed by my error.

I continue to acknowledge this mistake and I remain truly and sincerely embarrassed it occurred, but I took full responsibility at the time, made immediate amends, made full disclosure to those involved and deleted the mistake as soon as I realized it occurred.

I fully believed this matter was resolved at that time, but subsequently I have been contacted both directly and indirectly by politically connected individuals who have tried to use this mistake as a form of blackmail to force me into abandoning the Black and Asian Caucus in the Legislature.

These agents have threatened to make my mistake public unless I bow to their political wishes and walk away from this important caucus in an effort for me to “fall in line” with their agenda. They followed through with this threat because I was contacted by a media outlet regarding this matter. It was after that I learned that these same individuals have also contacted nearly every other member of the Black and Asian Caucus with the same threat.

I did not bow to this pressure and asked my colleagues not to either. I know what I did and I take full responsibility for it, but it is 'extortion' to threaten me and my colleagues with making this incident public unless we abandon the Black and Asian Caucus. Threatening us to abandon our people is a disgusting politically motivated power play, but more than that, it is illegal.

I have consulted legal counsel and we're asking law enforcement to investigate this extortion and hold those responsible accountable. I have taken responsibility for my actions and those who have tried to use them to extort compliance with their political agenda need to take responsibility as well.

I cannot reiterate enough that I regret what occurred, but I have taken and continue to take responsibility for it because that was the right thing to do from the start and I refuse to be intimidated by those who wish to pressure me now.

Editor's Note: since this matter involves the possible commission of the crime of extortion and will be turned over to law enforcement for investigation, I will not be making any further comments beyond the above statement.

Ernest S. Flagler-Mitchell"