Law firm's mailroom supervisor sent laminated erotic poem to subordinate, says harassment suit
A former mailroom supervisor at a Wall Street firm has been accused of sending an illustrated, laminated, erotic poem to a married woman he supervised.
The allegations are contained in a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former employee of an outsourcing company for the firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, the New York Post reports.
The plaintiff, Natalie Thorpe, alleges that her former supervisor, Tyrone Turner, tried to kiss and hug her, locked her in his office and asked her to have sex with him on a vacant floor of the firm’s building. He also sent her a laminated poem illustrated with a picture of a man kissing a woman resembling her, the suit says. “I love the way you giggle and the way your body jerks when I trace your tattoos with my tongue and rub you down with warm body oil,” it read. “I am at your erotic disposal.”
Thorpe alleges that Turner also told her that her livelihood depended on whether or not she went out with him, and that after she rebuffed him, he wrote negative performance reviews for her in retaliation. Thorpe is suing Williams Lea, the outsourcing company where the pair worked, for not intervening after she reported his behavior.
Turner, who left the mailroom job in 2011, told the Post that the allegations were “ridiculous.” The budding poet said he distributed copies of his poems to many of his co-workers. He also said that Thorpe had accused other supervisors of sexual harassment.
A spokeswoman for Williams Lea said the suit was without merit and would be vigorously defended.
