Finlay Resigns, Catazaro and Ramasar Suspended -- Update: Catazaro and Ramasar Fired

[Kathleen86]

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?  

[FauxPas]

What I find telling is that the donor/board member(?) is not explicitly named nor are the other female victims other than Lexi Maxwell (who may have been complicit). Like Trump, the wealthy and powerful are shielded from the repercussions of their abuses. I don’t think the wealthy donor was “suspended” in any way.  

Erica Pereira must be wondering about the state of her marriage if that is the Craig Hall cited in the complaint.  

Edited September 5, 2018 by FauxPas

[cobweb]

50 minutes ago, mille-feuille said:

I too hope they don't return. If they do, I will go out of my way to avoid them.

I would not avoid them. I'm there to see the dancing. On that basis, I'd go out of my way to see Amar, and take Catazaro more or less when he appears on the program, or not. 

If Finlay has a drinking problem, that explains some of his problems with stamina, technique, and partnering glitches recently, and what a shame. 

Edited September 5, 2018 by cobweb

[California]

2 hours ago, FauxPas said:

mom2, I work for an agency that works in legal matters so I have access to ECF or the electronic court filing system in New York Supreme Court.  That is where I got it.

This is a public website that will get you the Summons and Complaint after you enter the matching code:

http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/iscroll/index.jsp

That link worked for me. Put Waterbury in the plaintiff listing and it comes up.

The whole thing is sickening. Brief mentions of an alleged rape by an NYCB dancer at Vail and a party in DC while at the Kennedy Center with underage girls. How does Finlay avoid jail time, if this is all proven? And how can NYCB shield the donor who had a big hand in this, too?

[FPF]

2 minutes ago, California said:

That link worked for me. Put Waterbury in the plaintiff listing and it comes up.

The whole thing is sickening. Brief mentions of an alleged rape by an NYCB dancer at Vail and a party in DC while at the Kennedy Center with underage girls. How does Finlay avoid jail time, if this is all proven? And how can NYCB shield the donor who had a big hand in this, too?

One would think that having to pay $150,000 in damages for the hotel room would have been taken very seriously.

[Rick]

What's confusing is that the exact same "half a kilo" quote is attributed to a donor (paragraph 27, in reference to "ABT girls"), and another NYCB male principal (paragraph 55, in reference to NYCB female dancers).

[MarzipanShepherdess]

My husband and I attend City Ballet regularly and already have tickets to the upcoming Fall Gala (which we also attended last year), as well as another fall performance. We are disgusted by the allegations, of course, but also by what we consider to be a shameful response from City Ballet. Given that City Ballet's statement (via Scharf) does not seem to dispute the validity of the allegations, we feel only placing the perpetrators on suspension for a single season is inadequate given the severity of what occurred. We also are troubled that the statement did not indicate that the donor in question had been barred from further involvement with the organization. And beyond this, it is of course disturbing that these allegations follow on those against Martins, painting a picture of a pretty sickening institutional culture of exploitation of female dancers (and students!) After that episode I would have expected the institution to have done a lot of soul-searching and to have treated Ms. Waterbury's case more appropriately--but it has not. 

I would love to hear from any other City Ballet fans/supporters as to what they plan to do this upcoming season, or what you'd do in our shoes! Given the current situation, we are strongly considering writing to City Ballet and asking to withdraw our gala donation, with an explanation of our rationale. We aren't sure what to do with the tickets we have already purchased for the other performance either (we were taking friends, who would certainly be as horrified with the current events as we are)--just not use them? attend the other performance anyway but not go to the gala? Go to the gala but write a letter stating our outrage? 

Edited September 5, 2018 by MarzipanShepherdess

[California]

4 minutes ago, MarzipanShepherdess said:

I would love to hear from any other City Ballet fans/supporters as to what they plan to do this upcoming season, or what you'd do in our shoes! Given the current situation, we are strongly considering writing to City Ballet and asking to withdraw our gala donation, with an explanation of our rationale. We aren't sure what to do with the tickets we have already purchased for the other performance (we were taking 2 friends, who would certainly be as horrified with the current events as we are)--just not use them? attend the other performance anyway but not go to the gala? Go to the gala but write a letter stating our outrage? 

I don't have tickets for the fall season, but still plan on attending in the spring. One problem in these situations: the company has a lot of innocent people who depend on those paychecks and they would be punished with a major boycott of all performances. (It reminds me of the Roseanne cancellation -- a lot of ordinary actors and production staff lost their jobs, too, and I am glad the network is bringing them back without her -- although I have never watched that show and never will. I was disgusted with her Instagram dressed like Hitler, putting human-cookies in the oven, and wondered why they didn't fire her over that much earlier. Sorry to digress...)

Cancelling donations, writing to the management, etc. all seem like excellent choices to me.

 

[Vs1]

What makes one presume a woman would provide safety or not cause discrimination or harm?

[cobweb]

What I plan to do is wait, see how things develop, see what other information comes out, see what the response is, and let my mind has sift through this onslaught, then take it from there. 

[bcash]

Wow. Very worried how/if the dancers, especially female dancers will carry through a Fall Season that has many wonderful and demanding programs, under the circumstances. 

[Balletwannabe]

I bet the NYCB female dancers who rushed to publicly support these dancers on IG aren't feeling too hot right now.  Why would you just assume they are innocent? 

I second the thought of hoping for a female AD.

[koshka]

1 hour ago, Fraildove said:

The fact that the board had the complaint and felt that all three only deserved a small suspension makes me sick on a whole other level. They clearly have shown that every bit has been lip service and that the safety and respect of the women this involved is worth nothing. I just don’t understand how a board can continue and continue to cover up, hide, downplay, and deny and then expect everything to be ok and wonder why their organization is being targeted. 😢😱🤔

I would like to think that the suspension was pending further review of the case, and that if the allegations are borne out, that there would be much more than a suspension. 

[tutu]

12 minutes ago, MarzipanShepherdess said:

would love to hear from any other City Ballet fans/supporters as to what they plan to do this upcoming season, or what you'd do in our shoes!

I’m not comfortable watching this company right now. I was rather troubled by this line in the New York Times article:

“After The New York Times reported last monththat Mr. Finlay had resigned and Mr. Ramasar and Mr. Catazaro had been suspended, she said, she had ‘received threats from random people telling me I had enemies now, and how I am a job-ruiner.’” 

Given that Ms. Waterbury’s name wasn’t public at the time of suspension, I have questions about how and why she was (fine, allegedly) targeted for threats.

Many members of the company also expressed support on Ramasar’s (public) social media in the days following the suspension announcement. If that’s the first response to these kinds of allegations, it makes me sick.

[aurora]

4 minutes ago, koshka said:

I would like to think that the suspension was pending further review of the case, and that if the allegations are borne out, that there would be much more than a suspension. 

It doesn't sound like it...

 

From the NYT article:

"Charles W. Scharf, the chairman of the board at City Ballet, said in a statement that the company had not condoned any of the behavior mentioned and that it “has no liability for the actions specified in the complaint and has taken the appropriate disciplinary actions for the dancers involved.”"

And later on (somewhat repetitious but):

"Mr. Scharf’s statement said that “New York City Ballet is confident that there is no basis for this lawsuit, and vehemently denies the allegations that the company has condoned, encouraged, or fostered the kind of activity that Mr. Finlay and the others named have participated in, which were off-hours activities that were not known, approved, or facilitated by NYCB.”

He said that after the company learned of the allegations from Mr. Merson in June, “we investigated them and found that the actions had violated the Company’s norms of conduct, and immediate and appropriate action was taken.”

Mr. Scharf said Mr. Merson had contacted City Ballet “to try to negotiate a payment from the company to settle the matter to avoid adverse publicity” but the company had “refused the demand.”"

Edited September 5, 2018 by aurora
adding more information

[FPF]

2 minutes ago, aurora said:

It doesn't sound like it...

 

From the NYT article:

"Charles W. Scharf, the chairman of the board at City Ballet, said in a statement that the company had not condoned any of the behavior mentioned and that it “has no liability for the actions specified in the complaint and has taken the appropriate disciplinary actions for the dancers involved.”"

 

They are being sued. They are not going to admit anything before trial/settlement.

[cobweb]

I haven’t read the complaint, but as I understand it, Ramasar and Catazaro are accused of swapping intimate photos and expressing their sexual desires about women they know. That’s very different from filming somebody having sex without their knowledge. I do wonder, if it’s true, what was Chase thinking? Or will he contend that she did, in fact, know?

[chicagoballetomane]

Shocking. I have been following Alexandra Waterberry on Instagram for well over a year, and her relationship with Chase Finley was well documented in her photos and stories. It became clear over the summer that they were no longer together when she stopped featuring him and her account. I would not have guessed that she was the catalyst for all of this!

[Rick]

9 minutes ago, tutu said:

Many members of the company also expressed support on Ramasar’s (public) social media in the days following the suspension announcement. If that’s the first response to these kinds of allegations, it makes me sick.

The last few comments on Ramasar's most recent IG post are not so supportive.

[aurora]

5 minutes ago, cobweb said:

I haven’t read the complaint, but as I understand it, Ramasar and Catazaro are accused of swapping intimate photos and expressing their sexual desires about women they know. That’s very different from filming somebody having sex without their knowledge. I do wonder, if it’s true, what was Chase thinking? Or will he contend that she did, in fact, know?

Even if the women photographed by Ramasar and Catazaro were aware they were being photographed, that doesn't mean they were consenting to have the imagery disseminated among their coworkers--That sounds like the definition of revenge porn under the NYC law cited earlier.

[Helene]

3 minutes ago, koshka said:

I would like to think that the suspension was pending further review of the case, and that if the allegations are borne out, that there would be much more than a suspension. 

According to the original NYT article, the Board President said that the suspensions were the result of their investigation and said nothing about a further investigation.

Quote

But, after an investigation, the company “determined that each man had violated the norms of conduct that New York City Ballet expects from its employees.”

According to the latest  NYT article, the Board President said Waterbury's lawyer approached the Company about a financial settlement in June; it was Waterbury's allegations that were investigated:

Quote

 

He said that after the company learned of the allegations from Mr. Merson in June, “we investigated them and found that the actions had violated the Company’s norms of conduct, and immediate and appropriate action was taken.”

Mr. Scharf said Mr. Merson had contacted City Ballet “to try to negotiate a payment from the company to settle the matter to avoid adverse publicity” but the company had “refused the demand.”

 

This means that Waterbury was a known party as early as June, at least within NYCB after her lawyer contacted them.

[Balletwannabe]

The comments on Finlay's IG are brutal.  

[fondoffouettes]

9 minutes ago, Balletwannabe said:

The comments on Finlay's IG are brutal.  

It seems like it's been radio silence from NYCB dancers today on Instagram. I wonder if they are either in shock or have been asked to stay off social media for a while. There was an image (a behind-the-scenes shot from a photo shoot) posted by Sara Mearns five hours ago, and nothing since then from any of the dancers as far as I can see. And these are people who are usually constantly posting...

Edited September 5, 2018 by fondoffouettes

[bcash]

5 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

It seems like it's been radio silence from NYCB dancers today on Instagram. I wonder if they are either in shock or have been asked to stay off social media for a while. There was an image (a behind-the-scenes shot from a photo shoot) posted by Sara Mearns five hours ago, and nothing since then from any of the dancers as far as I can see. And these are people who are usually constantly posting...

Didn't Catazaro post something related to his modeling gigs today? It might have been before the story broke though.

[Rick]

I can't help wondering what Ashley Bouder will say about this eventually. She's the much admired, and vocal, feminist among the female principals, as profiled in the
New York Times.