Dov Charney, the controversial former CEO of American Apparel, filmed himself having sex with employees and models and exchanged pornographic emails and texts at work, it has been reported.
Mr Charney was ousted by the board of the Los Angeles-based company last June, citing allegations of a long list of offenses, including violation of sexual harassment and anti-discrimination policies and the misuse of company funds.
In a court filing answering Charney’s defamation suit against the company and its chairwoman, Colleen Brown, the company disclosed the seedy details of a six-month independent investigation that resulted in his dismissal last year.
It said the company had recovered ‘voluminous evidence’ from Charney’s company computers and devices showing that he had sexual liaisons with employees and models, exchanged ‘pornographic explicit emails, text messages’ and took ‘videos and photographs’ of these encounters using company property, the New York Post reports.
Charney claims the probe was not independent and has sued the company for defamation.
The latest legal wrangling, known as an Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) motion, asks the court to dismiss Charney’s defamation complaint.
It argues that Brown did nothing wrong in telling the retailers’ employees in an April 24 letter that Charney had been fired ‘for cause’ and ‘was not suitable to return the company as CEO, an executive or an employee’.
American Apparel, which Charney founded in 1989, manufactures clothes and sells them in 245 of its own retail stores in 20 countries and has about 10,000 employees.
Since then, the Montreal-born Charney has been the subject of lawsuits that allege he had inappropriate sexual conduct with female employees.
He has said he had consensual sexual relationships with workers.
In 2011, a former employee accused Charney of keeping her as a teenage sex slave, fearing she could lose her job otherwise.
She tried to sue American Apparel and its directors for failing to stop him from acting as a ‘sexual predator’.
Charney denied these claims and the lawsuit was dismissed.
In 2012, Charney once again came under fire when Michael Bumblis, a former store manager in Malibu, California, accused the CEO of rubbing dirt in his face and choking him.
Charney also allegedly called the man ‘a wannabe Jew’ and used a derogatory term for homosexuals. Bumblis was later fired from his job.
The former executive denies Bumblis’s allegations and the case was settled in 2015 with a confidential filing.
Some employees, however, believe that Charney is a hero within the company. Garment workers have held rallies claiming that he could save the company.
In March Charney broke his silence on being at war with the company he built.
Since being ousted, Charney, 46, has claimed he’s broke, even though he still lives in a ten-bedroom mansion in Los Angeles where he says he plans to return to power.
‘I want everyone to know I’m not ‘The Sleaze King’,’ Charney told ABC News’s 20/20. ‘The Sleaze King’ is another guy.’
