Kathleen86

For those who are critical of NYCB for not reaching some agreement with Ms. Waterbury when her lawyer first came to them -- remember we don't know what her demand was to them. I am an employment lawyer and regularly handle harassment claims. It is not at all unusual for a potential plaintiff to make an extremely high pre-litigation demand which the employer/defendant can't possible consider paying, even if they would like to settle the matter. Ms. Waterbury's lawyer could easily have made a seven or eight figure demand. And how would a non-profit arts institution make such a payment? By using donor funds that have already been budgeted for all the normal things a ballet company needs to do. There is rarely insurance that covers these kinds of claims -- and certainly not before the key players have had to testify under penalty of perjury at a deposition etc. On the criminal front -- victims often choose not to pursue that route because they are not in control of how the case is handled. A district attorney can simply decide not to pursue it or can settle for a very small fine/punishment. And in those cases the victim is just another witness -- they are not "at the table" when important decisions are made. And I agree the complaint is very poorly written. A rush job.

It's hard to imagine the stain of this going away anytime soon. The fact that she was at SAB is particularly bad -- would any of us feel comfortable about letting a teenager enroll there with potentially predatory stuff going on from the people in the company?

If the Paradiso payment was characterized at least in part as lost future income in the agreement it might have been paid to him as an employee. That's common in settlement of employee claims. Those payments are taxable as wages. Kathleen