Jeff Winick has been slapped with a $20 million lawsuit by a former employee, who says the retail brokerage chief threatened to fire her if she didn’t move in with him and become “Mrs. Winick.”
Alexandria Kulig says she was a trainee broker at Winick Realty when Winick singled her out from a group of other trainees and forced her to work only with him. He also allegedly requested that she move into his apartment, promising that if she did, he would marry her. If she didn’t, she would be fired, she claims.
As a result, Kulig claims she didn’t learn anything from the trainee program at Winick and suffered “emotional distress” and “financial worries.”
A spokesperson for Winick did not immediately provide a comment on the allegations, which remain unverified.
“Trainees are given multiple roles to facilitate their learning not to become of the wife of the CEO,” according to the complaint, filed Wednesday in New York Supreme Court. The complaint is notably filed in broken English and seemingly without the help of an attorney.
“The defendant ought to have familiarized himself with the trainee policies offered by the company before hiring a young attractive woman to work as a commercial real estate broker,” Kulig says in legal documents.
Kulig claims she quit her job at the company because of Winick’s advances.
When contacted by The Real Deal, she declined to comment on the suit.