Sex harassment suit claims trial lawyer refined his techniques to avoid explicit job-for-sex offer
A sexual harassment suit filed against a San Diego trial lawyer alleges he used his legal knowledge to avoid explicit offers of jobs for sex.
Rejected job applicant Alexa Zanolli, a staff lawyer for the federal court in San Diego, filed an amended suit against John Gomez of Gomez Trial Attorneys last month. The suit says Gomez “refined and honed his techniques in carrying out his ‘quid-pro-quo’ sexual proposals … without explicitly proposing an exchange of employment or employment benefits for sex.” NBC San Diego covered the allegations.
According to the suit, Gomez friended Zanolli on Facebook after she sought a job at the firm and went to observe him at trial. Referring to the trial, he thanked her for “coming to the show” in an email. She responded that it was her pleasure, and she planned to watch the closing argument, “Great trial,” she wrote.
“Twenty minutes later,” the suit says, “defendant Gomez engaged plaintiff as if they had just met at a singles bar, rather than in a courtroom where she was observing him professionally as a prospective employer. Defendant Gomez used the hackneyed pickup line on plaintiff: ‘Where have we met before?’ ”
Zanolli responded that they had probably met in chambers and mentioned the possible cases that brought him there. According to the suit, Gomez responded, “Ya. You came in and I was like…” The ellipses, the suit says, invited Zanolli to fill in the blank “with her projection of his feelings of sexual attraction towards her, which he pretended to be too shy to express.”
Gomez followed up in emails saying he wasn’t sure what the three dots were intended to mean, and he didn’t want to be improper, the suit says. He later proposed texting instead, and Zanolli gave Gomez her cellphone number.
The two exchanged text messages about the trial, but later texts veered from the topic, the suit says. Gomez asked some questions about Zanolli’s personal life and about whether she was dating another lawyer at his firm, the suit says. “Just don’t want to be texting his girl,” Gomez allegedly wrote. “Cuz I might slip if I have been drinking. I’m not the best grown up.” Gomez then allegedly wrote he “will behave,” followed by this text: “Just say please don’t. That will be our code for maybe yes.”
Gomez is also facing a second suit filed in September by a former paralegal at his firm, Elizabeth Castelli, the NBC San Diego story says. She alleges Gomez flirted, made sexually suggestive comments and touched her in a “sexually suggestive way.”
A lawyer for Gomez issued a statement to NBC San Diego saying the plaintiffs “are attempting to win the lottery.” Only one text conversation with Zanolli was “anything other than professional,” the statement said. And Castelli’s suit appears partly based on “a fantasy apparently reflecting her unfilled hopes that John had a personal interest in her,” the statement said.
Here is the full statement:
“It is an injustice that John Gomez has been forced to defend himself against meritless claims. Both claims are false. Anyone can allege anything in a lawsuit. Both women have no facts behind their claims of sexual advances and are attempting to win the lottery. Ms. Zanolli was interested in following one of John’s trials. Only once was a text conversation anything other than professional. Ms. Zanolli filed a lawsuit falsely claiming a quid quo pro sexual advance because John asked whether she was dating someone at his firm. Sadly, Ms. Castelli’s lawsuit seems to be based upon a couple of bland complimentary emails and a fantasy apparently reflecting her unfilled hopes that John had a personal interest in her.”
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