A Suffolk County judge dismissed a lawsuit from a former state employee who claimed officials at the State Auditor’s Office forced him to resign amid threats to his life but who a state attorney alleged sexually harassed a colleague in the men’s bathroom, according to court documents.
Suffolk County Superior Court Associate Justice David Deakin wrote in a four-page ruling earlier this month that Kehinde Olatunji Adedeji did not properly lay out factual allegations that plausibly suggested wrongdoing on the part of the State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office.
“In this case, the failings of the plaintiff’s complaint are so profound as to require dismissal,” Associate Justice Deakin wrote in the ruling. “To the extent that the plaintiff either can find an attorney to represent him or review his allegations in light of this decision, he may still have the option to re-file at least some of his claims.”
A spokesperson for DiZoglio’s office declined to comment on the ruling.
Adedeji said the court “short-changed” him and he planned to appeal the decision to the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
“Suffolk Superior Court decision was below the standard of upright reasoning in a case where there was no single evidence like video surveillances, emails, text messages, phone calls, voice messages, social media (DM) direct messages etc,” he said in an email to the Herald. “I guess the judge rushed into taking decision without conducting investigation into what they referred to as ‘Litany of Misconduct.’ It is a wicked decision.”
At the center of the dispute Deakin dismissed was a September 2024 meeting between Adedeji and two officials from DiZoglio’s office, General Counsel Michael Leung-Tat and Executive Deputy State Auditor Stephen Lisauskas, that ended in Adedeji’s departure.
Adedeji alleged he was coerced into resigning his position as an auditor because he suspected Leunt-Tat and Lisauskas “may kill me on that day in the office at One Ashburton Place,” according to court documents filed in Suffolk County Superior Court.
But an assistant attorney general representing DiZoglio’s office said the meeting was the culmination of “troubling behavior” that began after Adedeji was hired in October 2023.
That alleged behavior included posting recordings of coworkers on social media without permission, pressuring female interns to connect with him on social media, attempting to use his position to influence law enforcement officers, running a side business, and sexually harassing a colleague in the men’s bathroom, Assistant Attorney General Shweta Mahajan Sethi wrote in court documents.
Adedeji, who represented himself in court, denied the accusations.
“The dismissal of the case was a miscarriage of justice,” he said.
Deakin said the case was dismissed because Adedeji’s complaint did “not meet the pleading standards set out in” case law and civil procedure rules.
“Notably, the complaint sets out no facts supporting any of the plaintiff’s claims to having been wronged,” Deakin wrote. “Even allowing for the latitude that judges should grant self-represented litigants, the plaintiff’s complaint does not set out ‘factual allegations plausibly suggested (not merely consistent with)’ an entitlement to relief.’”
