Hedge Fund Investor Relations Girl Loses Suit Against Boss For Dumb Blonde Jokes, Lap Dances, Alleged Murder Attempts
Remember Jordan Wimmer and her boss Mark Lowe, manager of UK-based Nomos Capital? For those of you who (shamefully) need a recap, last fall Wimmer, a former investor relations girl who made £577,000 a year, sued Lowe for £4million, making a host of claims that included Lowe:
* Making jokes about the intelligence of blondes:
She said that Mr Lowe made derogatory ‘dumb blonde’ comments and would email ‘a series of offensive jokes’ to the whole team at Nomos. ‘They portrayed women, particularly blonde women, as objects and having no intelligence.’
* Employing unorthodox pick-up lines:
She claimed Mr Lowe…told her he did not find her attractive. However, she said he would still ‘invade her space’ and tried to kiss her at a hotel in Milan.
* Hiring prostitutes:
Miss Wimmer said her boss used the services of ‘high class prostitutes’ who he brought to business meetings. Describing one meeting in Hong Kong, she said: ‘Ling wore hot-pants that barely covered her buttocks, stilettos and no stockings.’
* And implying that the job of hooker and IR gal are basically interchangeable:
Miss Wimmer said she felt demeaned by Mr Lowe creating the impression that Ling ‘was part of the Nomos outfit’ and did the same job as her.
* The matter of having to be present while Lowe (the specimenat left) got a lap dance:
Miss Wimmer claimed that in 2005 she was made to watch Mr Lowe have a lap dance in a Paris burlesque club with ‘Charity Wanju’, an Oriental prostitute. They went to the Crazy Horse Cabaret which was ‘full of suited men’ and ‘women in nothing but G-strings’, Miss Wimmer said. She added: ‘To say that [colleague] Carol Teng and I looked out of place would be an understatement. ‘Ms Wanju engaged Mark in a private lap dance. This involved straddling Mark facing towards me and Carol. She began thrusting her hips in a fast motion.’ Mr Lowe then went on to have another lap dance with a waitress who rubbed her breasts in his face it was claimed. ‘It was wrong on so many levels that I cannot even begin to articulate it. Mark knew Carol and I would hate it and that we were not in a position to say anything for fear of losing our jobs,’ Miss Wimmer said. ‘We felt completely soiled.’
Trying to have her killed:
Wimmer said she believed her boss Mark Lowe 59, the firm’s founder, had hired a Russian hit man or enlisted a family member to attempt to murder her. Miss Wimmer told how she was left fearing for her life after an incident in which a car tried to run her over six times near the King’s Road in Chelsea.
Central London Employment Tribunal heard how Miss Wimmer, who is claiming sexual discrimination and constructive dismissal, told a psychiatrist “they” were trying to “hurt her” after she quit her job. The medical notes read at the tribunal told how Miss Wimmer ran into a restaurant and asked them to call 999 because a man who looked like her boss was trying to run her over after she left a gym in Chelsea in May this year.
* Making jokes about putting your lady-friend in trunk of a car:
A selection of the emails Mr Lowe sent to Miss Wimmer and other women staff were read to Central London Employment Tribunal. One email from May 7, 2008, titled ‘Who is your real friend?’ read: ‘Put your dog and your girlfriend in the boot of your car for an hour and then see who is happy to see you.’ When asked by Alisdair Simpson, for Miss Wimmer, if he thought the joke was demeaning to women, Mr Lowe disagreed and said he thought it was ‘funny, but not especially’. Mr Simpson replied: ‘You don’t think putting your girlfriend in the boot of your car is demeaning?’ Mr Lowe said he had never put a girlfriend in the boot of a car, adding the joke was ‘not especially demeaning’. Lowe [also] said: ‘I thought they were funny. They weren’t brilliantly funny, but they amused me.’
* Offering career advice that involve "face-fucking" people:
Lowe admitted that the phrase was “not very polite” but denied that it was “highly inappropriate” and “sexually explicit material”. He used the words in response to an email from Ariane Gordji, who was doing work experience at his firm Nomos Capital, in which she included a Latin passage from St Paul which talks about “love your enemies”.
Mr Lowe, 59, who lives in Switzerland and has a reported wealth of 100million pounds, replied with the phrase “irrumabo vos et pedicabo vos” from the poet Catullus. He disputes the translation offered to the tribunal sourced from Wikipedia of “I will face-f*** you and b***** you”.
He claims instead that it meant that he would “screw and b*****” those who criticised him. He said: “It is burlesque, it was always light-hearted in the first century and it still is now. It’s a more robust and more pagan response to love your enemies which is what St Paul says but I say screw and b***** you.”
Anyway! A court has ruled against JDubs, with employment judge Sara Woffenden saying: "We did not find the claimant a persuasive witness." While the panel "admitted the jokes were in poor taste...with some being sexually explicit, sexist or offensive about Muslims, the Welsh and transsexuals," Wimmer apparently should've complained if she really didn't like them. The judge also added that Wimmer never said anything about not wanting to go to the strip club in Paris and that she could have left.