Former broker alleging sexual harassment had a restraining order against her

The Marcus & Millichap Ontario agent she accused requested the order

(Credit: iStock)
(Credit: iStock)

UPDATED, 11:18 a.m., Sept. 21, 2018: Adina Hemley’s lawsuit has been dismissed. Hemley requested the dismissal.

A former Marcus & Millichap agent who is suing an agent from the brokerage for sexual harassment had a restraining order filed against her by the same man she accused, The Real Deal has learned.

Newly obtained documents reveal that the woman, Adina Talkov Hemley, appeared to be pursuing a personal relationship with the Marcus & Millichap agent, Kevin Boeve.

Court documents and emails show that Boeve, who works at the brokerage’s Ontario, California, branch, filed a temporary restraining order in June, which the court granted on June 28. In it, he claimed that Hemley was harassing him and disparaging him to his colleagues. Hemley had been fired from the firm in June 2017.

Boeve said he had received over 100 emails from Hemley since June 2017, according to the restraining order.

“I guess I’m in love with you?” Hemley wrote in one email to Boeve on Aug. 9, 2017, documents show. “It doesn’t seem like you’re totally reading my onslaught of emails anyway, so maybe this is like cutting down a tree in a forest with no one there to hear it.”

Hemley filed a lawsuit against Boeve and Marcus & Millichap on July 17 in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming she was repeatedly propositioned for sex by Boeve, TRD previously reported. The new details came to light a day after publishing.

In her lawsuit, Hemley claims there was a “hostile work condition” at the commercial brokerage, complete with “rear slapping” and “cocaine usage.” She added that the firm does “not have a good reputation of protecting its women.”

Hemley worked as an agent at the firm from November 2015 to June 2017.

She claimed she was unlawfully terminated after bringing up her allegations to management. She also said Boeve routinely passed her over for promotions and leads after she turned away his advances.

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Boeve claimed Hemley was fired June 17, 2017, after “her behavior had become strange and erratic, and she was not performing as expected,” according to a court document filed June 28 requesting the restraining order.

On Jan. 5, Hemley sent an email to Marcus & Millichap managers, claiming she was unlawfully terminated and would like to be rehired. Later that month, on Jan. 14., she emailed Boeve, asking him if they could get married, documents show.

Hemley then seemed to retract any ill-will toward the firm on Jan. 28 in a Facebook post: “I want to right past wrongs by declaring that my former workplace Marcus & Millichap never even once harmed me or their female employees in any inconceivable way. I obsessively blew everything out of proportion.”

In March, Hemley sent an email requesting a sexual encounter with Boeve and his wife, the documents show.

Boeve’s lawyers sent a “cease and desist” letter to Hemley on May 4. Hemley then called Boeve “manipulative and evil,” according to an email sent to a Marcus & Millichap employee that same day.

Reached on Thursday, an attorney for Hemley said that the emails alone were not sufficient to satisfy a restraining order, and that Boeve was not in fear of his safety. The lawyer said that Hemley was still pursuing the case.

Boeve is an industry veteran who first joined Marcus & Millichap in 1996. After he became a regional manager at the firm’s Ontario and Palm Springs offices in 2013, he returned to client representation in 2016 as senior vice president of investments.

Katherine Farkas, an attorney for Marcus & Millichap, said “we vigorously dispute the allegations in the lawsuit.” Farkas, from the firm Scheper Kim & Harris, called the allegations, “baseless.”

Boeve could not be reached for comment. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

Correction: An earlier version of this article did not note that Kevin Boeve’s request for a temporary restraining order against Adina Talkov Hemley was granted. The court granted the order on June 28.