Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Chef Michael Chiarello hit with double sexual harassment lawsuits




Two former employees of the celebrity chef Michael Chiarello have filed two lawsuits against Chiarello and his restaurant group, alleging sexual harassment and labor violations. Chiarello is a very well known chef who owns the restaurant group, Gruppo Chiarello, which include the restaurants Coqueta and Yountville. Katherine Page and Asja Sever, who former employees of Coqueta are suing Chiarello claiming that he and other important staff members at the restaurant created a sexually hostile and abusive environment.

The website EATER, shared this news on March 15th and gave graphic examples of the horrendous things that Chiarello allegedly did and said. In addition to inappropriately touching and gesturing towards employees and customers, both male and female, Page and Sever claim Chiarello said vulgarities to his managers in regards to hiring employees such as, “If you don’t want to f*k them, don’t hire them.” The examples are extensive and can be viewed at the link to the article attached below.

One of Chiarello’s executive chefs, Dominick Maietta, has also been named in the suit as participating in such harassment with Chiarello, and he is listed as a defendant to Chiarello in this case. In addition to the sexual harassment claims, “the restaurant failed to pay wages and overtime, manipulated clocks and timesheets and forced front of the house employees to pool their tips with the kitchen staff.”


The article actually did not employ any rape myths initially, and remained very factual and unbiased. However, on March 16th, the article was updated with a statemend from Chiarello’s publicist claiming that all of the allegations are false. His publicist further went on to paint the audience a picture of who Chiarello is, explaining how he “is the son of immigrant family, a true American success story, who became the acclaimed chef he is today by using the skills he learned from watching his mother cook when he was a young boy and caring about the people with whom he worked.” This is employing the rape myth that sexual offenders are only monsters with horror stories who prey on victims, and, since Chiarello is a hard-working, family man, he could not possibly have conducted himself in such an atrocious manner.

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