Court documents in a sexual-discrimination lawsuit accuse the Brooklyn borough president’s office of being “a haven for sexist jokes, inappropriate sexual activity by staffers and illegal political-campaign activities,” as well as favor toward male staffers. The lawsuit, filed by Marty Markowitz’s former communications director, Regina Weiss, also alleges that three other women in the office were subject to “inappropriate conduct.” Weiss is now accusing Markowitz of perjuring himself during his deposition around the matter of an offensive joke about a sausage. Although Gregory Atkins, Markowitz’s former chief of staff, testified that a female employee complained about the joke from a male co-worker and left numerous voice mails about it for Markowitz in the middle of the night, Markowitz testified that he didn’t know about the incident. Weiss says it would be hard for Markowitz not to remember numerous calls, especially considering Atkins testified that Markowitz asked him to deal with the distraught employee. Markowitz had no trouble recollecting his nickname for Weiss though. He launched into a “spirited oath” in defense of dubbing her Tinkerbell, calling Peter Pan’s fairy a “loving” character. If you believe that, boy does he have a joke about a sausage to tell you.
Marty faces heat over bias-claim testimony [NYP]
