Former Senior Exec Claims Sexual Harassment & Retaliation Against Municipal CU Officials

The $4.1 billion Municipal Credit Union has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by one of its former senior executives who claimed supervisors ignored and retaliated against her over complaints of sexual harassment by former President/CEO Kam Wong.

Anie Akpe-Lewis, who was MCU’s vice president of mortgage operations, also alleged that she uncovered an increasing number of defaults of MCU installment loans that she suspected were fraudulent. She also claimed that a MCU employee was involved in down-payment embezzlement schemes regarding automobile loans and that Wong compelled the mortgage approval for a physician with whom he had a close personal relationship.

Lawyers representing MCU and seven individuals who formerly worked at the credit union argued that Akpe-Lewis’ lawsuit should be dismissed because her sexual harassment and retaliation claims were mere assertions and were not backed up by any specific facts. The case is being heard in federal court in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

MCU attorneys did not address Akpe-Lewis’ claims of financial improprieties.

In addition to Wong, who is in federal prison for embezzling nearly $10 million from New York City’s oldest credit union, the lawsuit also named P. Kay Woods and Mark Ricca, who both served as MCU’s CEO at different times after the credit union was conserved in May 2019; former MCU Chief Credit Officer and interim CEO Norman Kohn; Sonita DiStefano, former director of real estate lending; and HR Consultants Shannon Mashburn and Yixue Jiang. All of them were Akpe-Lewis’ supervisors.

In her lawsuit, Akpe-Lewis alleged that from October 2007 to December 2017, she was “repeatedly a target of a continuous, unwanted and hostile illegal pattern of quid pro quo sexual harassment by Wong, and that she was constantly being propositioned by him to have an intimate and illicit sexual relationship.”

Because she is alleged to have rejected his sexual advances, she suffered retaliation by being denied salary increases in 2018 and 2019 and had her bonus cut by 50% from 2015 to 2019. Akpe-Lewis also claimed she was shut out from monthly meetings with other SVPs, denied committee appointments, and was “suddenly being ridiculed for her afro hairstyle, and forcing Anie to pin her hair down.”

The former credit union senior executive also claimed she repeatedly reported Wong’s harassment to MCU Chief Credit Officer Kohn, but he allegedly “summarily dismissed” her complaints, admonished her and never investigated them.

“While Plaintiff alleges in vague and conclusory fashion, that she was subjected to unwanted sexual advances from 2007 to 2017, no detail is provided regarding what was said or done, on what dates, how this occurred, who was present, etc., rendering it impossible to reasonably conclude that the alleged misconduct meets the applicable legal standards for sexual harassment,” MCU lawyers wrote in court documents.

MCU lawyers also pointed out that Akpe-Lewis waited for 13 years after the alleged sexual advances began in 2007 to file her complaint last year, noting that in New York, sexual harassment allegations must be filed within three years.

Akpe-Lewis’ retaliation claims also should be dismissed, according to MCU lawyers.

While she is alleged to have rejected Wong’s advances as early as October 2007, she was not terminated from her job until June 2019 and suffered no alleged adverse actions until at least eight years later in 2015 when she began complaining about her bonus reductions.

“No facts are alleged to connect these adverse actions to the alleged rejection of Wong’s advances,” MCU lawyers wrote. “Thus, Plaintiff has not alleged facts sufficient to state a claim for quid pro quo harassment either.”

Regarding the allegations Akpe-Lewis made against Kohn, lawyers contend that she again failed to provide specific facts.

MCU lawyers are also seeking Akpe-Lewis’ claims to be dismissed against the individuals named as defendants because she included almost no factual detail to support any claim of individual liability against them or that they were involved in any wrongdoing.

Akpe-Lewis’ lawsuit was filed in federal court in June 2020 at about the same time MCU and its conservator, the NCUA, sued CUMIS Insurance Society for failing to pay a $9.8 million interim insurance claim to cover the losses from a widespread fraud and corruption scandal that led to MCU’s conservatorship. The lawsuit, originally filed in May 2020, revealed details and allegations of rampant wrongdoing at MCU that not only involved Wong, but at least five top executives, two supervisory committee members and 13 former board members, which led to more than $18 million in financial losses and $109 million in write-down losses.

Akpe-Lewis was not accused of any wrongdoing in this lawsuit, which was recently settled.