Ad agency CEO allegedly ‘hates those fucking Jews’
Employee's lawsuit against JWT head Gustavo Martinez also claims he told her in front of other staff he would like to 'rape her in the bathroom'
The CEO of a major American advertising agency is being sued by one of his employees for a host of allegations, including making crude anti-Semitic remarks and racist speech.
Gustavo Martinez, chairman and chief executive of J. Walter Thompson, allegedly used the phrase “fucking Jews” during conversations with employees and also called black people “monkeys.” In addition, the company’s communications officer, Erin Johnson, alleges that he told her in front of other company employees: “Come here, so I can rape you in the bathroom,” then grabbed her around the neck and laughed.
Martinez became CEO at JWT in 2015, having moved from IPG’s McCann in 2014. The New York Post, reporting on the incident, says the lawsuit alleges that Martinez told other employees that he wanted to “rape them into submission.”
Johnson claims in the lawsuit, filed at the Manhattan Federal Court, that when she complained about Martinez’s conduct to executives at JWT and WPP, he retaliated by cutting her bonus and leaving her out of executive meetings.
Martinez denied the claims.
“I am aware of the allegations made against me by a J. Walter Thompson employee in a suit filed in New York Federal Court,” The Post quoted him as saying, and “want to assure our clients and my colleagues that there is absolutely no truth to these outlandish allegations and I am confident that this will be proven in court.”
The US Marines, Avon, Revlon, Puma and Johnson & Johnson are among the clients represented by JWT. None commented on the report by Thursday.