A judge has awarded $20,000 to a woman who alleged she was forced to resign from her job as an executive assistant to the CEO of a Hollywood production company in 2023 due to his alleged harassment and antisemitism.
On Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez found in favor of plaintiff Jesseca Harvey on her causes of action for hostile work environment and failure to prevent or remedy harassment in her suit against Yuri Spiro, CEO of WestWorld Productions Inc. The judge, however, rejected Harvey’s multiple state Labor Code violation allegations.
Both Harvey and Spiro represented themselves in the non-jury trial that lasted less than eight hours on June 3, after which Hernandez took the case under submission.
“The court finds that the parties’ inability to maintain a working relationship with their respective attorneys unfortunate,” Hernandez said. “It placed the court in the inevitable position of constantly reining in the parties to provide admissible evidence and control the trial in a manner that the court could decide the case on the merits based on the evidence presented.”
Spiro denied he was antisemitic and a racist. No ruling was made as to WestWorld, also a defendant, because Harvey had not entered a request for a default judgment, the judge wrote.
According to her suit, Harvey was hired in April 2022 as Spiro’s executive assistant. Harvey worked more than 50 hours weekly “under the close scrutiny and explicit discretion” of Spiro, who “incessantly reached out to her at all times of the day, instructing her to schedule meetings and phone calls, conduct building tours and fulfill various assignments, the suit alleged.
During the entirety of her employment with Spiro, Harvey “endured a barrage of relentless sexual innuendos and racist comments, plunging her into profound emotional distress,” according to her suit.
On one occasion, Spiro rubbed his hands together and told Harvey, “You’re as stubborn as a virgin during her first time,” the suit further alleged.
Spiro made antisemitic comments to Harvey, including telling her and a Mercedes-Benz car salesman that he wanted to change the vehicle’s emblem to a swastika, the suit stated.
Harvey resigned “due to the intolerable working conditions,” according to the suit filed in March 2024.