9/11 veteran claims FDNY is cheating him out of benefits, pension

The FDNY is denying a decorated Army veteran and former fire marshal — who bravely served in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 —  his benefits and pension, he claims in a scathing new lawsuit.

Leonard Draves, who toiled at Ground Zero to identify the remains of 343 fallen firefighters before being called to active US Army duty, alleges the FDNY is violating federal law protecting veterans, according to his $2 million suit.

“It was a very traumatic experience for me to go through that and be treated in such a horrible manner,” Draves, 64, said in an interview with The Post this week.

While on the battlefield, the city mailed Draves a letter nixing his health insurance and pension — with two uniformed officials knocking on the door of his Queens home, terrifying his wife, he said.

“My wife — she thought it was a death notification — she was very distraught after that,” Draves said. “I was away serving and they’re harassing my family. I don’t understand why.”

Draves, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002 until 2019, argues he has the right to get his old job back under a US law that guarantees wartime soldiers their civilian jobs and benefits once discharged. 

But “they wouldn’t rehire me,” he said of the FDNY — adding that he is also being denied access to a critical 9/11 health program.

His suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court last month, accuses the fire department of “discriminatory conduct” that “was willful, wanton, and malicious, and showed reckless disregard for [Draves’] protected rights.”

Draves seeks to collect damages for lost pay and benefits in violation of a law called Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act — or USERRA — and to be allowed to participate in the World Trade Medical Monitoring Program.

But an FDNY spokesperson said its actually Draves who owes the city $600,000 in salary payback.

The spokesperson, who said the FDNY was reviewing the suit, claimed Draves collected two salaries while serving and never properly communicated that he enlisted full-time with the Army.

His attorney, Peter Gleason, hit back that as a commissioned officer, Draves did not enlist but had “an obligation to serve at the will of the US Army.”

Gleason also noted that the Bloomberg-era payback deal — where 9/11-era reservists who collected both city and military salaries had to repay the lesser of the two when decommissioned — has a six-year statue of limitations.

“After multiple combat tours Lt. Col. Draves attempted to return to his civilian employment with the FDNY only to have the door slammed in his face,” said Gleason, himself a veteran of the fire department.

“To suggest that LTC Graves should have shirked his military obligation to pacify FDNY bureaucrats flies in the face of the FDNY mantra, ‘Never leave a brother behind,’” said Gleason.

And while the USSERA typically has a five-year limit, that restriction is ignored during call-ups in a time of war or national emergency, he noted.

Draves grew up in Whitestone and attended both high school and the Transit Police Academy with Mayor Eric Adams. He worked as a transit cop for two years and joined the FDNY in 1985, getting promoted to fire marshal in 1999 — all the while remaining in the Army reserves as a lieutenant colonel. 

He worked to identify the remains of the fallen firefighters and the one fire marshal lost on Sept. 11, 2001— a traumatic task that involved removing the bodies of his fallen brothers from their bunker gear, taking fingerprints and recovering remains and any personal artifacts.

Despite wearing industrial Tyvek suits, Draves said he came home every night covered with “the stench of death.” 

“It was a very, very tough time,” he said.

In February 2002, he got the call up to serve with the Army reserves — so he filled out the proper paperwork with the FDNY and shipped out, according to his lawsuit, first to Afghanistan, then to Iraq where he trained local police to handle deadly IEDs that were killing scores of allies.

“Getting called out to defend the country after 9/11, it was an honor,” Draves said.

With a shortage of commissioned officers, Draves said he was recalled to the regular Army, extending his service until he was discharged.

But while he was dodging Taliban bullets, the FDNY was getting ready to fire a salvo of their own, his lawsuit claims.

In 2010, shortly after his recall, Draves got a letter from the city saying he and his family were getting booted from their health insurance and the FDNY pension system, the suit states.

At the same time in Queens, a pair of uniformed city officials “banged” on the doors of the family home in an apparent attempt to locate him — terrifying his wife and four kids, Draves claims. 

His family had to “scramble” to get on a military insurance plan, said Draves. 

“My family suffered,” he said. “It was painful, and it did distract me from the mission.”

After his honorable discharge in 2019, Draves went for his medical review to re-enter the FDNY at the MetroTech Medical Center.

But in the middle of his physical, Draves said, he was kicked to the curb when the fire chief of the medical center told him he’d been gone too long, and he “had to leave.”

A promised follow-up never happened — a “constructive termination,” the lawsuit claims.

Draves is still denied access to the FDNY’s WTC Health Program for his 9/11-related illnesses as a certified first-responder, the suit states.

Due to the ordeal and alleged mistreatment, Draves said, “I couldn’t bear going back” to the fire department.

“Thank God for the VA (Veterans Affairs) — they really got me through this,” he said. “They take care of their brothers.”