Editor’s note: In March 2017, an appellate court affirmed a lower court order and required Joseph Earl Jackson to pay the defendants $40,994 for his willful refusal to provide documents requested in discovery, and the case was discontinued pursuant to a stipulation signed by all parties.
A strapping young Manhattan p.r. rep claims his female bosses treated him like a sexy hunk of meat — and then quickly kicked him to the curb when he turned down their sleazy proposals, according to a lawsuit.
Joseph Earl Jackson says his supervisors at Open Communications Omnimedia in Chelsea flirted with him, fondled him and even asked him to take part in a salacious “bang sesh.”
Jackson said he “endured” seven months of lusty ladies hugging him, kissing him and telling him, “You are so handsome” at their company offices.
The $35,000-a-year account coordinator claims the company’s chief strategist, Sally O’Dowd, told him “how she loved young black and Hispanic men” and “that she loved how sexy his chest and deltoids were in his white button-down shirt,” according to the Manhattan civil suit.
O’Dowd even allegedly commented on Jackson’s penis size after a client pitched a new product — a case with a condom inside.
She said the condom “probably wouldn’t fit Joseph,” the suit claims.
Jackson, who was hired in July 2013, says O’Dowd, “without warning, hugged him three times,” “sexually whispered into his ear, ‘You are so handsome,’ ” and kissed him on the nape of his neck.
The incident left him “distraught,” he says in court papers.
The alleged harassment did not stop with O’Dowd, the suit claims, adding that another supervisor, Kathryn Campisano, allegedly pursued Jackson on the sly.
The supervisor allegedly sent him a text message last November that asked, “When are we going to have our bang sesh?”
She followed up the query a month later with a message that read, “I’m going to need you to be my next boyfriend Joseph,” the suit says.
Jackson remained a loyal employee despite the distractions, he claims in court papers that say he “endured, he continued to perform as a stellar employee,” and was even given more responsibility in mid-February.
But when Jackson complained to Open Communications CEO John Andrew Morris, the exec allegedly ridiculed him in front of his colleagues.
Morris called Jackson “a hater that needed to be removed,” the suit says, and he was canned on Feb. 21.
The harassment has left him feeling “extremely humiliated, degraded, victimized, embarrassed, and emotionally distressed,” according to the suit, which is seeking unspecified damages.
Representatives for Open Communications did not return messages for comment.