Two former employees of a Manhattan hedge fund — who say they were sexually harassed on the job — are being accused in a lawsuit of trying to shake down their former boss with topless photos of his wife.
The wife, Sandra Abrams, claims the women are refusing to return racy photos her CEO husband, Russell, snapped on their honeymoon unless his company ponies up $2.5 million to settle their sex-harassment claims.
Danielle Pecile and Cristina Culicea’s “demand is nothing short of blackmail,” Abrams charges in a $1 million lawsuit against her hubby’s former Titan Capital employees.
Pecile, 26, and Culicea, 27, say they’re the ones who’ve been booby-trapped — by being asked to print out naked pictures of Abrams.
They claim they’ve been sexually harassed by both him and his brother Marc, a company vice president.
It’s “outrageous,” the women’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, said of the extortion charge.
“This is a clear act of retaliation against my clients for both of them having filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint” against the brothers, charging them with harassment and discrimination, Wigdor said.
Both women said they were treated poorly while working as assistants to the Abrams brothers at the $200 million hedge fund, but that didn’t mean their departures were taken well.
Wigdor said Marc unleashed a furious barrage of e-mails and voicemails on Pecile, whom he had dated, calling her “a dirty pig thief,” a “rotten bitch,” and “a whore” after she resigned in April.
Marc Abrams did not return a call for comment, and Sandra and Russell Abrams declined comment.
The Abrams’ suit says Sandra and her husband went on their honeymoon last July in Italy, where “Russell took numerous personal photographs, including several of his wife, some posing topless.”
He gave a CD of the 142 photos to Pecile and asked her to drop them off at the drugstore downstairs from their office, the suit says.
Wigdor told Russell Abrams that one of the ways Pecile was harassed was in having to see the topless pictures, and that they had copies of them.
He said they would be returned if the entire case were settled, and that it would take $2.5 million to do so, the Abrams said. The photos were subsequently included as evidence in the EEOC complaint, the suit says.
Wigdor claimed that Russell Abrams was aware that Pecile had to look at the pictures to print them out, and that when she handed the pictures to Abrams, he smirked, “You liked them, didn’t you?”
“He gave me a perverted smirk,” Pecile said.
Culicea said Russell Abrams also had her print out racy pictures of his blushing bride, including one of both of the newlyweds in a bathtub.
“It was creepy and embarrassing,” she said.
Sandra Abrams, who is seven months pregnant, wants the pictures back and $1 million for emotional distress.
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland