A carpenter says that her male boss forced her to have sex with him on a weekly basis in the unfinished apartments and bathrooms of 220 Central Park South, the New York Post reported.
The abuse in the ritzy condo tower lasted for two years, according to a lawsuit filed with the Manhattan Supreme Court last week. The carpenter, Denise Mignott, says that she complied with foreman Elvis Philbert’s demand out of fear of losing a good union job.
“Any time he feels like it, he would demand sex,” Mignott, a lesbian, told the Post. “I know I had to do it or he’d fire me.”
Mignott told the publication that Philbert also demanded and received a threesome with her future wife at a hotel, an allegation that was not included in the lawsuit in the interest of “brevity,” according to Mignott’s lawyer, Randy Kleinman of Gerstman Schwartz.
Mignott, who began learning the carpenting trade in her native Jamaica, said she faced constant abuse and harassment there because of her sexual orientation.
Philbert denied the allegations, and employer Woodworks Construction said it investigated and found the allegations to be “baseless and without merit.”
Mignott, who was in Carpenters Local 926, supported her unemployed fiancée with her pay, which had risen to $42 an hour in 2019 from an initial rate of $19.
“It was the hardest thing for me to do,” the fiancée told the Post of the alleged threesome. “It’s like we’re doing it to save our life, financially. I sat in the car for almost an hour crying before I went in.” [NYP] — Kevin Sun