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American diplomat ran consulate like party pad: suit

An Italy-based American diplomat brazenly bedded staffers and hookers, fabricated expense reports, and knowingly served rotten meat to a visiting British consul general, a blockbuster Brooklyn federal lawsuit charges.

Naples Consul General Donald Moore even gave favored ladies of the night entry codes to secure areas at the embassy and told underlings that “women are like candy, they meant to be unwrapped and thrown away,” according to a $300,000 sex discrimination lawsuit filed by a whistleblower.

Former consulate community liaison Kerry Howard claims in her lawsuit that the career foreign service worker bullied her into resigning her post after she began complaining about his outlandish behavior to supervisors.

Howard says Moore ran the consulate like his own personal party pad and openly denigrated female staffers as clueless subordinates, the suit states.

Howard’s suit names Secretary of State John Kerry as the sole defendant. The Post first reported in June her assertion she was run out of the foreign service after complaining about Moore’s dalliances with subordinates and hookers

Moore has since been reassigned from the Italian post to a position at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, which is also administered by the State Department.

The suits states that Howard began working at the consulate in 2010 and alleges she soon learned that Moore had impregnated a staffer and forced her to have an abortion. She complained about the unseemly tryst to a superior but was told to keep her mouth shut, according to court papers.

Moore was eventually ordered to end the relationship but soon launched a campaign of intimidation against her as payback, the suit alleges.

She repeatedly had her office moved without reason and was barred from key meetings, the papers state.

“Kerry Howard was subject to unwelcome verbal and physical contact engaged by Donald Moore to intimidate, frighten, and create a hostile work environment,” the suit states.

Meanwhile, Moore ramped up his Neapolitan nookie campaign — and didn’t even hide it, according to court papers.

“Donald Moore, Consul General of the United States Consulate, orally advised staff that he used women for ‘sexercise,'” the suit states.

Howard’s attorney, Lawrence Kelly, said that Moore also oversaw the termination of seven staffers who knew about his behavior and that they were considering taking legal action against him in Italian courts.

Those employees provided sworn statements that accused their former boss of everything from serving spoiled meat to embassy guests to trumping up expense sheets, Kelly said.

After her complaints fell on deaf ears, Howard resigned from her post in May 2012, according to the suit. She still lives in Naples and now runs an olive oil import export business, according to her lawyer.

A State Department official declined to comment on the pending litigation.