New York- A security firm that allegedly stored lewd photos on an office computer was slapped with a $10 million lawsuit yesterday by an employee – a former cop who says she was fired after complaining about the raunch.
June Donovan, vice president of Barton Protective Services, reacted with “disgust and dismay” when she made the sleazy find in December 2001, said her attorney Jonathan Sack.
The ex-NYPD detective “wondered what naked, graphic, pornographic pictures had to do with the security guard business,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
Donovan alleged in her lawsuit that some of the photos depicted a naked man who turned out to be one of her subordinates at Barton.
The lawsuit said that one photo depicted the man “in a hot tub, his privates covered by soapsuds, while a naked woman … is seen in the mirror taking a photograph of him.”
In another he posed naked, flexing his biceps, she contends. Other offending photos included one of 11 female cheerleaders exposing their breasts, and another of five naked, obese women, the lawsuit contends.
Donovan complained repeatedly about the pictures and even tried to get the worker who had posed naked fired. But no one took her complaints seriously, she said. “‘To me, this is just bathroom humor,'” she quoted one of her superiors as telling her.
When the company canned Donovan in October 2003, she said, was told she was being fired from her $110,000-a-year post “for incompetence.”
But Donovan believes it was the ruckus she made over the X-rated computer files that did her in.
Yesterday, Barton President Pat McNulty declined to discuss the suit. “Our attorneys are aware of the situation but we cannot comment on pending litigation,” McNulty said.