Ungratefull

A "KIND and generous" New York mum donated a kidney to help save the life of her boss - who then turned around after she got what she wanted and helped fire the woman, according to an explosive new legal complaint.

"I decided to become a kidney donor to my boss, and she took my heart," Debbie Stevens, a 47-year-old divorced mother of two, said. "I feel very betrayed. This has been a very hurtful and horrible experience for me. She just took this gift and put it on the ground and kicked it."

In papers filed on Friday with the state's Human Rights commission, Stevens charges that she was clearly set up by Jackie Brucia, 61, her once-ailing boss at the billion-dollar Atlantic Automotive Group (AAG), which operates several new-car dealerships.

Stevens said she first got to know Brucia, one of the West Islip company's controllers, while toiling as a clerical worker for the firm starting in January 2009. Stevens then left the company in June 2010 to move to Florida. But when she returned to Long Island for a visit that September, she stopped by the office and talked with Brucia, a discussion that included Brucia's health problems and "her need for a kidney transplant", the papers state.

Stevens said that Brucia told her she had located a possible donor, a family friend.
But "because she was naturally a kind and generous person, Stevens told Brucia that, if necessary, she would be willing to donate a kidney," the document says.

"Brucia ... told her, 'You never know, I may have to take you up on that offer one day,'" the papers say.

Soon after, Stevens decided to move back to Long Island for good and asked Brucia if she could return to work there. She had a job with the company again within weeks.

Then, two months later, in January 2011, Stevens said, Brucia "called me into her office and said, 'My donor was denied. Were you serious when you said that?' I said, 'Sure, yeah.' She was my boss, I respected her. It's just who I am. I didn't want her to die."

Brucia had been "apparently grooming her to be her 'backup plan,'" according to the papers.

But while Stevens was a close health match for Brucia, she was not a perfect one. So the doctors agreed to allow Stevens to donate her left kidney to someone else in the transplant group so that Brucia could move up the waiting list and get her organ from someone else.

Stevens said she did not realise that she was in for serious pain, discomfort in her legs and digestive problems after the surgery on August 10, 2011. She said she felt pressured to return to work on September 6, before she was ready - even while her boss was still recovering at home.

When Stevens went home sick three days after her return, she said, Brucia actually called her from home to berate her. Brucia did not return phone calls. She was spotted outside her home on Friday getting into a limo with plastic cups and what appeared to be a bottle of pink champagne.