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American Apparel board members allege ex-CEO Dov Charney kept images of sex with staff on company computer

Jim Edwards   

American Apparel board members allege ex-CEO Dov Charney kept images of sex with staff on company computer
Retail2 min read

Dov Charney

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Dov Charney.

Two board members at American Apparel have filed motions in a California court alleging that former CEO Dov Charney kept photographs of himself having sex with staff members on company computers.

The motions are part of the board's attempt to thwart Charney in his bid to return and regain control of the company he founded. Charney was dismissed in June 2014 after the board decided too many sexual-harassment lawsuits had been filed against him.

Charney has since sued the company and its investors, alleging that he was forced out by fraud and then wrongly persuaded into signing a legal agreement that deprived him of control of his company stock, which represents a roughly 23% stake in the company he founded.

In a motion to strike the suit, board member David Danziger alleges that Charney was fired in part due to "Charney's use of electronic storage media belonging to the Company for personal purposes to graphically document his sexual liaisons."

A motion by board chairperson Colleen Brown goes into even more detail. She says the company paid $1.5 million and $1.9 million to two models who claimed they had been harassed or sexually assaulted by Charney. Irene Morales and Alyssa Ferguson received those sums, respectively. Two more models received confidential settlements. One of those models, Kimbra Lo, had filed a police report against Charney alleging assault.

The settlements were made because employees of American Apparel, allegedly with Charney's knowledge, had created blog posts revealing the models' private messages to Charney in an attempt to demonstrate that the relationships were sexual. Arbitrators awarded against the company on the basis that the blogs wrongly impersonated the models.

Charney has never been convicted or found liable for these accusations in any court of law. Business Insider asked both Charney and his lawyer for comment; we'll update this post when we hear back.

Danziger's filing describes the official reasons Charney was fired:

charney american Apparel

Court documents

Brown described the sexual allegations against Charney in more detail, noting that he called himself "Daddy" in conversations with employees:

American Apparel dov charney

Court documents

The rest of the filing - which quotes Charney's emails to female staff - is too graphic to quote here.

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