Press Release: -Tech CEO Greg Shenkman Sued For Sexual Battery
Odd to get a media release like this.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ed Vasquez
Date: 2009/3/5
Subject: Press Release: -Tech CEO Greg Shenkman Sued For Sexual Battery
To: news@redacted
******** NOTE: Bonagofsky and Kharchenko are available for interviews
today at Bonagofsky's San Francisco office. Call Ed Vasquez at
408-4xxx8.
LEADING HIGH-TECH CEO GREG SHENKMAN SUED FOR SEXUAL BATTERY AND
HARASSMENT BY FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Shenkman’s Executive Assistant alleges she was subjected to a sexually
abusive work environment and threatened with the loss of her job and
deportation
San Francisco, CA. – March 4, 2009 – Greg Shenkman, CEO and co-founder
of Exigen Group, a San Francisco-based company and its affiliate
companies that employ over 2,000 people in 15 countries, is being sued
in San Francisco Superior Court (Case number CGC-09-485624) by his
former Executive Assistant, Iryna Kharchenko, for physical and verbal
sexual harassment and sexual battery. The lawsuit also states that
company officials refused to act on Kharchenko’s prior complaints to
stop the abuse, and that Exigen ultimately fired her for complaining
about Shenkman’s treatment.
Kharchenko, a native of Ukraine, alleges that Shenkman lured her and
other young Eastern European women to the United States with promises
of a visa and a job at Exigen's San Francisco headquarters. Soon
after arriving in the United States in March 2004 to work for Exigen,
Kharchenko alleges that Shenkman subjected her to constant,
inappropriate sexual harassment, including physical touching and
sexual advances.
Kharchenko and the other Eastern European women worked for Exigen
under H-1B visas. The law states that an H-1B employee must work for
the host company that sponsored the employee, and severely limits the
sponsored employee from changing jobs. The lawsuit claims that
Shenkman used the H-1B visa laws to take advantage of Kharchenko and
the other Eastern European women. “An executive should be not able to
abuse his position of power and use the promise of a better life in
America to lure young, Eastern European women to work for an American
company, and then threaten to fire them and have them deported if they
do not comply with his sexual demands,” said Kharchenko’s attorney,
Scott Bonagofsky.
Kharchenko’s complaint states, for example, that Shenkman summoned her
from San Francisco to his hotel room in New York City while he was on
a business trip to meet with record executives from Universal Music
Group and Warner Music Group, then threatened to fire her and send her
back to Ukraine when she resisted his inappropriate sexual advances.
Kharchenko claims that when she complained of Shenkman’s conduct to
Tanya Veshvyakova, Director of Human Resources for Exigen, her
grievances were not investigated and she was told that she had to put
up with Shenkman’s conduct until she could get a green card allowing
her to leave Exigen and get a job a different company. Shenkman
banished Kharchenko from the 23rd floor of Exigen’s offices to the 4th
floor, demanded that she move out of the apartment that Exigen
provided for her, and then terminated her employment just prior to
Christmas in 2008.
Kharchenko came to America from humble beginnings in Ukraine, a former
Soviet Bloc country that was hard hit economically by the fall of the
Soviet Union. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Ukraine fell more
than 60% during the 1990s, a drop in GDP that was approximately twice
that experienced by the United States during the Great Depression.
“We believe that the evidence will show that Shenkman went to troubled
former Soviet Bloc countries such as Ukraine to recruit his young,
female assistants because he thought that he would be able to find
women who were more willing to go along with his inappropriate conduct
than an American woman would be,” said Bonagofsky.
Despite an incredibly difficult economic climate in her home country,
Kharchenko excelled in academics during her youth and was actively
involved in local community service. Kharchenko was a charter member
and the first president of the Sumy Rotaract Club (a Rotary-sponsored
service club for men and women ages 18-30), and provided services and
aid to disabled youth and war veterans. Kharchenko obtained a degree
in business administration from Sumy State University in Ukraine, and
then was awarded a Rotary Club Ambassadorial Scholarship to attend
college at Lander University in South Carolina. She obtained another
bachelor’s degree in business administration from Lander University in
2002, and returned to Ukraine when her student visa expired, hoping to
return to America to live and work.
Prior to co-founding Exigen in 1999, Shenkman was the Chief Executive
Officer of Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., a company
that he founded in 1990, took public in 1998 during the dot com boom,
and then sold to Alcatel for $1.6 billion in 1999.
Potential witnesses are encouraged to contact Kharchenko’s attorney,
Scott Bonagofsky, by telephone at (415) 882-1555 or by email at
scott@bw-lawyers.com.
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