In a sane and fair world, if you walked into an office conference room to find a co-worker choking the chicken, it would be the man with member in hand who would have to face the consequences.
However, apparently things don’t always work like that in the world of high finance, a new lawsuit alleges.
A female employee at a New York investment firm has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired after she complained about walking in on her boss masturbating in a conference room.
Logan Williams claims she caught Chuck Hinckley, one of the managing directors at Marathon Capital, masturbating in a conference room at the firm’s New York City offices on July 23.
The alleged incident was detailed in a sexual harassment and hostile work environment lawsuit filed on her behalf in Manhattan Federal Court this week.
Marathon has denied the allegations in the lawsuit.
However, if you pardon the pun, the fired employee claims that Hinckley’s heinous conference room behavior was only the tip of the iceberg. It was, she says, just the culmination of a pattern of abuse.
Williams alleges she was repeatedly subjected to discriminatory and sexist behavior from Hinckley after joining the firm.
In the lawsuit, which was first reported by the New York Daily News, the former administrative assistant says she was uncomfortable working under Hinckley and complained several times to the company’s CEO Ted Brandt about his conduct.
According to the complaint, Williams walked into a conference room that Hinckley had overtaken as his own office when she found him allegedly masturbating.
‘Specifically, Ms Williams walked in and observed an extremely surprised look on Mr Hinkley’s face. She looked down and saw Mr Hinckley desperately trying to push his penis back into his pants with his left hand,’ the complaint says.
Williams claims in the lawsuit that she got a threatening call from a private phone number on August 22 in which someone posing as an NYPD officer told her to remain quiet or ‘something very bad will happen to you’.
Marathon said in a statement carried by several media outlets: ‘It is unfortunate that our former employee has resorted to making baseless allegations that are nothing more than a desperate attempt to extract an undue payment. Marathon Capital adheres to the highest standards of professional conduct and we will defend ourselves vigorously.’