The New York Daily News spoke with Mefit “Mike” Zecevic, a former janitor at Goldman Sachs who claims he was fired and forced to walk fifteen hours to his home on Staten Island in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Zecevic is now suing the investment bank’s janitorial firm, ABM Industries, for $10 million. (He also said he’s hoping to get his job back.) As Zecevic tells it, he worked without sleep to fight the water that flooded the building during the storm. He was still cleaning up on the morning of October 30, when his boss, Eric Holt, allegedly asked him to remove a coworker’s shirt, which happened to contain $100, from a locker intended for Goldman Sachs employees. Later, Holt (who the suit claims “had a distinct odor of alcohol on his breath”) returned and told Zecevic to leave the building even though downtown was blacked out and the city was still in a state of emergency. “I asked what is the reason. He wouldn’t say,” said Zecevic.
He described the ordeal (for which he is suing for wrongful termination and enduring nightmares) on Friday from his lawyer’s office, “I walked crying. I was exhausted already. It was dark and cold. I could see the red emergency lights on the bridge. There was nobody around. I walked all night in Brooklyn, walking, walking, walking. I was scared … I was praying for my life.” He said police officers ultimately drove him across the Verrazano Bridge once he reached the entrance. (The full court filings are here.)
ABM, which sent Zecevic a letter accusing him of stealing “tenant property” a month later, is calling his account “inaccurate and misleading, including but not limited to his descriptions of the circumstances surrounding his termination for theft and his departure.” Meanwhile, Zecevic’s lawyer said Goldman Sachs itself has been “very supportive” of his client’s case.
