Jenny Castillo will get back her job as a correction worker.
A judge hammered the city Correction Department for unfairly firing a probationary employee who missed work due to injuries she suffered from her abusive husband.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan ordered the city to reinstate Correction Officer Jenny Castillo and give her $84,000 in back pay.
“I got my life back,” the 40-year-old mother of five told the Daily News on Thursday. “My job as a correction officer was not a job. It was a career. It was my dream job.”
Castillo said she repeatedly told her bosses about her “out-of-control” husband and asked for scheduling accommodations.
During one fight, he wrapped his hands around her neck and tried to strangle her, court papers say. Another time, he hid her badge so she couldn’t go to work. He also threatened to slash her face with a broken bottle and repeatedly talked of killing her, according to legal documents. She was forced to miss 63 days of work, partially due to a back injury she suffered after he slammed her into a wall, records show.
At one point, jail bosses deemed Castillo AWOL after she attended a mandatory Family Court hearing concerning a restraining order against her husband, court papers show. Callous jail honchos placed her in a “chronic absence” program and fired her on Aug. 22, 2012.
“I didn’t have any hope,” Castillo recalled.
The department’s “discriminatory and bad faith” firing “shocks the conscience” and violated the department’s internal rules for domestic violence victims, Ling-Cohan ruled on July 28.
As the case snaked its way through court, Castillo lost her home in Jamaica, Queens, and at times barely had enough money to feed her family, she said.
Her lawyer hopes the decision sends a message to the department.
“It’s high time that the Department of Correction stopped punishing people for absences that are medically documented or punishing employees who are victims of domestic violence,” said Mercedes Maldonado of the firm Koehler and Isaacs.
Jail officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.