NY- A New York travel agency titan was allegedly a hands-on boss who groped employees’ breasts and buttocks and even touched himself in the workplace, a new lawsuit charges.
Hector Delgado, who founded a travel agency empire that caters to Hispanic immigrants, is being sued for $1 million by two female former employees who say he lorded over a workplace rife with revolting sexual shenanigans.
In a class-action lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan Supreme Court, Jessica Ajoy and Ana Maria Flores accused Delgado of copping feels on female workers, subjecting them to unwanted come-ons and offering raises and promotions to women willing to be “good girls.”
“It was terrible, just terrible,” said Peter Eikenberry, an attorney for the women. “He treated women in general badly, women he liked even worse, and pregnant women even worse than that.”
The latest lawsuit adds to a series of claims made against Delgado, who was put on probation in 2000 after pleading guilty to sexual abuse of a female employee. But Delgado, a married father, said he’s not a deviant.
“It’s a shame what people will do for money,” he said.
Delgado founded Delgado Travel, which now has more than 30 outlets in New York, Ecuador and Mexico, after arriving in the U.S. in 1973.
Based mostly in Hispanic neighborhoods, the business is built around immigrants who place calls and send money back to their homelands.
“He’s a successful businessman, and successful businessmen make easy targets,” said his attorney, Robert Holtzman.
But Ajoy and Flores countered that Delgado was a serial groper, who, in one instance, ripped off an employee’s clothes and then offered her $1,000 for oral sex. He also allegedly made suggestive comments about employees in miniskirts.
But Delgado insisted he hadn’t laid a finger on the women. “I don’t handle the employees,” he said.
