American Apparel founder Dov Charney allegedly turned a teenage employee into his sex slave, forcing her to send him nude pictures and texts before sodomizing her soon after her 18th birthday – just months after she returned to work following a nervous breakdown, an explosive new lawsuit charges.
Charney, who demanded Irene Morales, now 20, come to his Manhattan apartment when she turned 18, answered the door in his underwear, dragged her inside and forced her to her knees so she could pleasure him, according to the lawsuit, which demands a staggering $250,000,000.
“Then he dragged her to the bedroom, threw her on the bed, got on top of her and forced her to perform another act of fellatio, nearly suffocating her in the process,” the suit alleges.
Morales was then essentially “held prisoner” in the apartment for several hours during which time he forced her to perform additional sexual acts, according to the lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Her lawyer, Eric Baum of the firm Simon, Eisenberg and Baum said, “We’re very concerned about [her] well-being.”
Charney allegedly began harassing Morales in August 2007 — when she was just 17, a high-schooler working as a sales associate in an American Apparel store — telling her that she would be fired if she did not detail her sexual history, engage in “increasingly explicit” sexual functions and send him sexually explicit pictures, according to the lawsuit.
And, he told her that in order to keep her job and be promoted, she would have to have sex with him as soon as she turned 18, the suit says.
The pressure of Charney’s demands caused Morales to become “increasingly nervous and depressed,” forcing a hospital stay after an “emotional breakdown,” the suit alleges.
After her release, she told Charney of her breakdown, which he then used to increase the pressure, the quarter-billion dollar lawsuit against Charney, American Apparel and members of the company’s board of directors alleges.
He forced her to work longer hours and perform personal tasks without extra pay leading up to the alleged attack on the day she turned 18. Afterward, he continued to demand sexual service and communications in exchange for her continued employment at American Apparel, the suit says.
In the suit, Morales says she was induced to visit Charney in Los Angeles last summer where she was “subjected to extreme psychological abuse and torment.”
Finally, “completely repulsed and again on the verge of a breakdown,” Morales quit the company and Charney’s demands ceased as soon as he lost the leverage of her employment, the suit says.
She has undergone extensive psychiatric treatment and is suffering from “serious psychiatric injuries from which she will never recover,” the suit says.
A lawyer for Charney did not immediately respond to the suit.
Charney, who recently revamped his management team at the racy teen retailer known for its sexually provocative ads, has been accused by ex-employees of conducting business meetings in the nude.
In 2009, Charney settled a lawsuit filed against him by Woody Allen for $5 million after using a picture of the movie director dressed as a Hasidic Jew in billboards for American Apparel.
Allen demanded $10 million for the unauthorized use of his likeness.