The former Governor of New Jersey is currently facing a lawsuit filed by an attorney in his law firm alleging that he sexually harassed her for several years.
 
A former executive of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce claims in a lawsuit that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by what she called the prominent business group’s "boys club," which often got drunk during and after work, frequented strip clubs and ridiculed women.

The suit claims that one executive who participated in the harassment, James Leonard, was fired by the chamber in 2010 for unrelated reasons, but two chamber trustees got him a "plum" job in Gov. Chris Christie’s office, where he earns $130,000 a year as a policy adviser.

The accusations included in the suit filed by Carol Gabel, 52, the former vice president for business development, also describe two instances in which she says she was degraded by the governor in 2001. Although he was not identified, Donald DiFrancesco held the office at that time.

Gabel claims in the suit the chamber never took her complaints seriously despite a policy against sexual harassment, and that she was underpaid compared to her male colleagues. She said she developed anxiety, depression, hypertension and headaches, and took disability leave.

She was later told that she was fired because her position was eliminated, though she claims in the suit that she was dismissed for speaking up.

"This woman put up with a really intolerable work environment for a long time and tried everything she could to resolve it absent litigation," said Gina Mendola Longarzo, a lawyer for Gabel. "But when they fired her when she was out on disability, she had no choice."

Gabel is seeking damages including lost pay, lost benefits, pain, suffering and attorneys fees.

Ronn Torossian, a Manhattan-based public relations spokesman for the chamber, said in an e-mail statement that it had not yet been served with the lawsuit, but is confident there is "no merit to this complaint."

"We take this, and all allegations, very seriously and have launched an internal inquiry into this matter," Torossian said in a statement. "Our current leadership was not employed here at the time a majority of the claimed incidents allegedly occurred."

DiFrancesco did not return a message seeking comment. But he told the New Jersey Law Journal, which first reported on the suit Wednesday, that the incidents never happened and that he did not remember meeting Gabel either time she alleges a governor harassed her.

Leonard did not respond to a message left at his home, and Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, declined to comment.

The suit, filed on Oct. 7 in Superior Court in Middlesex County, claims the chamber’s current and former executives fostered a "culture of intoxication" that led to sexual harassment while Gabel, of North Brunswick, worked there from 1999 until last year.

Gabel said in the suit that her bosses and coworkers often ate and drank at Marsilio’s restaurant in Trenton. On one occasion, Gabel says in the suit that Leonard, her supervisor at the time, "unabashedly" asked her about her breast cup size while drunk.

The suit claims that after Leonard was dismissed, two chamber trustees — Dennis Bone, president of Verizon New Jersey, and Jeffrey Scheininger, president of Flexline/U.S. Brass and Copper Corp. — secured Leonard the job in Christie’s office. Leonard is not a defendant in the suit.

Others named in the suit include Thomas Bracken, currently president of the chamber, Dana Egreckzy, the senior vice president of workforce development, and 10 others who are unidentified.

On another occasion, after a 2008 chamber dinner in Washington, Gabel claims in the suit she was awakened by a call at 2 a.m. and asked by a colleague to come to a chamber hotel suite and dance on a piano.

She also claims in the suit that her bosses did nothing when the governor harassed her twice in 2001. At a chamber dinner, Gabel claims the governor commented on her necklace, stating "nice beads," while "openly ogling her breasts," according to the suit.

And in another instance, Gabel claims she passed the governor in the Statehouse and he grabbed her coat collar and "aggressively asked her when they were having dinner," the suit says. Gabel complained to Leonard, according to the suit, but said he only teased her about the incident.

In 2010, Gabel said in the suit that Scheininger threatened to fire her and said she was "just a minnow swimming with the sharks." When confronted with her complaints about the "boys club," Gabel claims in the suit that Scheininger said, "that’s what (expletive) male lobbyists do, Carol."