A Boston City Hall employee who was arrested on felony assault charges in April is on unpaid leave but still employed by the city months later, city officials confirmed Wednesday.
The employee, 33-year-old Daunasia Yancey, told City Hall about her arrest and was put on paid leave on April 15, according to city spokesperson Jessicah Pierre. Officials moved Yancey to unpaid leave on May 7 after the city learned more details about the incident, Pierre told the Globe via email Wednesday.
Yancey’s status stands in contrast to a recent, high-profile incident involving two City Hall workers, who were ultimately fired five days after being arrested on misdemeanor assault charges.
Mayor Michelle Wu has emphasized that those two employees were fired after a City Hall investigation found that they invoked their status as city workers with police in an attempt to avoid arrest, which she said is a violation of the city’s ethics policies. The woman involved, Marwa Khudaynazar, was also charged with assaulting a police officer. Khudaynazar has said her comments about her job were taken out of context and that the allegations she hit the police officer were exaggerated.
Both Khudaynazar and her boyfriend, Chulan Huang, have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges.
Yancey is the deputy director of the mayor’s office of LGBTQ+ advancement and the founder of the Black Lives Matter Boston chapter, according to a page on the city’s website viewed by the Globe Wednesday morning, but later was unavailable.
Yancey was arrested on April 11 and is facing one felony count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and one misdemeanor count of assault and battery, according to court documents and a police report. She pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on personal recognizance, according to court records.
Details of Yancey’s arrest were first reported by an online news outlet called Mass Daily News, which appears to be associated with an anti-Wu social media account on X. The Globe independently obtained the police report and court records.
Police arrested Yancey after responding to a call reporting an active domestic violence incident at a Roxbury home at 1:40 p.m. on Friday, April 11, the police report says.
The caller claimed that her ex-wife and her ex-wife’s partner, Yancey, had arrived at the caller’s home, where Yancey assaulted the caller by slamming her into a wall and hitting her in the throat, before leaving with a locked safe, according to the police report.
When police arrived, the caller said her ex-wife had come to the house to collect her belongings, including her birth certificate, the report says. When the caller said the birth certificate was in a locked safe and she couldn’t find the key, her ex-wife attempted to take the locked safe with her, and the caller tried to stop her, the report says.
That’s when Yancey intervened, the caller told police, according to the report. Yancey grabbed the caller and threw her against the wall, the caller alleged in the report, then hit her in the throat. Yancey and the caller’s ex-wife then left with the safe, the report said. Court documents list the wall as the dangerous weapon in the incident.
Police saw some scratches on the caller’s back, but did not see any visible injuries on her throat, the report says. Officers requested the assistance of Boston EMS, who evaluated the caller and recommended that she seek further medical assistance if needed, the report says.
While police were taking the caller’s victim statement, Yancey and the caller’s ex-wife returned to the house, and police took Yancey into custody, the report says.
Yancey is next due to appear in Boston Municipal Court in Roxbury on July 10, according to court records. Yancey and her attorney did not immediately respond to the Globe’s requests for comment.
City Hall prioritizes “maintaining public trust and respecting due process” when making decisions related to employee discipline, Pierre, the city spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.
When a city employee is arrested, Pierre wrote, the city usually places the person on paid leave until City Hall gets more information on the specific charges, and whether they violate city policies, laws, or statutes, or are addressed in a union contract.
“If those charges are related to an employee’s job function or violate the public trust, [the employee] may be terminated or immediately placed on unpaid leave until the case is decided or until the job function can no longer be held vacant, whichever comes sooner,” Pierre said in the statement. “Once the case is resolved or facts are confirmed, the City will take appropriate employment action up to and including termination.”
“If, at any point, the city receives information documenting employee misconduct in violation of workforce policies, the city will review the matter and then take appropriate employment action,” she continued.
Andrew Ryan and Sean Cotter of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.