Black Cook Says His Co-Workers Dressed As KKK & Harrassed Him

"The first time they said it was a prank; this shows no one got the memo that this is unacceptable behavior in the workplace,"

A black midtown hotel cook says two co-workers inside of a year have dressed like the Ku Klux Klan and harassed him, the Daily News has learned.

Julius Jones said the latest incident occurred Tuesday at the Roger Smith Hotel — a day after he hit the hotel and three employees with a $35 million discrimination lawsuit over an alleged racist stunt on Oct. 28, 2010.

In an amended complaint, Jones says painter Ramon Pagan confronted him in the hotel basement wearing a "pure white cone-shaped article on his head.”

Pagan said, "Hey, look at me. I am the Ku Klux Klan," while a hotel manager witnessed the bizarre exchange, according to court papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court.

"I was blown away," Jones, 42, told The News. "[Pagan\] laughed in my face and enjoyed what he was doing. And there was a manager right there looking at him and didn't say a word."

"It was not a painter's mask he was wearing, it was perfectly shaped like a cone," he added.

Jones immediately reported what happened to hotel brass who reviewed a surveillance video which captured the scene.

Phoebe Knowles, a vice president for the Roger Smith Hotel, said Friday that management acted decisively and canned Pagan.

"The employee no longer works here," Knowles said. "We have a strict policy against any type of harassing actions, and we respond expeditiously when it comes to our attention."

Court papers say that in last year’s incident, hotel chef Jeff Farley donned a white pillowcase over his head, then taunted Jones by asking, "How does that make you feel? Do you feel insulted?

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