Mixing business and pleasure isn’t always the best idea.
A woman was fired from her job after her co-worker shared their sexts with four colleagues. Now, the woman’s former employer is hitting her with $25,000 in legal fees, The New York Post reports.
Jennifer Ricketts sent explicit text messages, “including intimate images and videos” of herself, to co-worker Stephen Nazario last year, but he ended up sharing those messages with four of their co-workers on Dec. 11, according to court documents. “I felt humiliated when it first happened,” Ricketts told The Post.
The 28-year-old woman—who worked as a retention specialist at the company—sent the messages to Nazario while vacationing in the Dominican Republic, “believing that he would demonstrate discretion; unfortunately, Nazario was not deserving of such trust,” per court papers.
Ricketts was fired less than a week after a friend disclosed the incident to company execs, since the images broke the company’s sexual harassment policy. “I had just had a newborn baby and they fired me a week before Christmas,” Ricketts told the outlet.
She sued her former employer and Nazario in the Bronx Supreme Court, but the company alleged that Ricketts signed papers obligating her to resolve conflicts in arbitration instead of court. A judge sided with the company and threw out Ricketts' case last month, directing both parties to figure it out among themselves.
Ricketts decided not to press criminal charges against Nazario because it’d be very hard to prove that he had malicious intent. “I don’t know what his intention was, but I do feel part of that was bragging,” Ricketts said.
The company is demanding Ricketts pay almost $25,000 for their legal fees for the court case. “It’s insane that they are trying to come after me for attorneys’ fees. You fired me. Where am I going to get the money from?” she said. Ricketts’ lawyers are planning to appeal the judge’s arbitration ruling.
Nazario and the four other employees were fired a few weeks after Ricketts.
