Prosecutors are investigating allegations that an executive at Elite Model Management tried to tamper with the jury during a sensational case where one of their employees complained she’d been smoked out of her job.
The jury awarded the former employee, Victoria Gallegos, $5.2 million for her claim that she was discriminated against because of her disability – extreme sensitivity to cigarette smoke.
In a decision made public yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Louis York said the alleged tampering happened while the jury was deliberating how much in damages Gallegos would be entitled to for her seven weeks of working in the modeling giant’s supposedly smoke-filled offices.
That was when a juror said she was approached in a public courthouse bathroom by Elite’s financial director, Mary Ann D’Angelico, who allegedly started badmouthing Gallegos, saying that she had been a lousy employee.
“D’Angelico imparted information [to the juror] the court had previously excluded,” York wrote. That juror told another juror who was a lawyer and “it was at his insistence” that they told the judge, the decision says.
York dismissed the jurors, replaced them with alternates and referred the incident to the DA.
D’Angelico’s lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, said, “We deny any allegation of jury tampering. Ms. D’Angelico did not engage in any wrongdoing.”
In the same decision, York reduced the jury’s verdict to $4.3 million.
Gallegos’ lawyer, Robert Herbst, called the judge’s ruling a “good, judicious result.”
Elite lawyer Robert Goodman said, “The judge insufficiently reduced the damages.”