A long-serving Black female detective for the New York Police Department who spent most of last year caring at home for her dying, cancer-ridden mother, with permission from her boss, is now fighting the department and the city’s police pension fund for retirement benefits and trying to stave off criminal charges.

In her complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in New York on Oct. 6, NYPD Detective Specialist Jaenice Smith, 51, says the department is wrongfully accusing her of “theft of time” for following the work-at-home arrangement authorized by her supervisor, former Assistant Chief Scott M. Henderson.

After three years of caregiving for her mother, who had stage 4 cervical cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, while still working at the

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