Wardrobe stylist was employed at CC office
By Steve Montgomery
A former NFL Network employee who worked in the Culver City headquarters office is the latest woman to accuse a high profile employer of sexual harassment.
The NFL Network is a sports-oriented cable and satellite television network that is owned by the National Football League.
In an Oct. 6 lawsuit filed in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, Jami Cantor, who was fired last year after working for 10 years as a wardrobe stylist at the Culver City office for allegedly stealing clothes from her fellow employees, accuses the NFL Enterprises LP of retaliation, defamation and age discrimination.
She is seeking unspecified damages.
Cantor maintains that she did not steal the clothing.
In court papers, the complaint states Cantor often paid for clothing with her personal credit card that was later worn by on air personalities but was never reimbursed.
Her attorney, Laura Horton, said sexual harassment is “systematic” in the entertainment industry and called her client “a very courageous woman.”
“I’m not surprised to hear about this type of behavior at all,” added Horton, who has practiced labor and employment law for over 25 years.
Cantor, 51 and a single mother of three, complained of constant harassment at work, including making lewd comments and touching her private parts, according to the lawsuit.
“Nothing was done in response to plaintiff’s complaints,” the complaint states. “Instead, NFL made it more difficult for plaintiff to do her job by increasing her work load and cutting her hours.”
Cantor’s lawsuit comes after such high profile sexual harassment lawsuits have toppled former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, the late president of Fox News Roger Ailes, former Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly and other Fox personalities. Comedian Bill Cosby lost a television special, numerous endorsements and a large swath of his reputation as “America’s Dad” after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment last year.
Others accused in recent days or weeks or inappropriate sexual conduct or groping are journalist Mark Halperin, Hollywood producer James Tomack and former President George H.W. Bush.
While Horton did not state directly that Cantor was motivated to take legal action after seeing the spate of sexual harassment claims against Weinstein, Ailes and the multiple Fox personalities, she does think it has been instrumental of other women who have stepped forward to confront their harassers.
“I think it’s empowering for women to know that it’s just not happening to her. That it’s happening to a lot of other women,” she said. “The hashtag #MeToo (a movement on Twitter where victims of sexual assault or harassment and their supporters can post stories and encouragement that more than 1.7 million men and women have used) has become a very powerful symbol for women.”
Regarding the alleged theft the NFL Networks says wad the reason why Cantor was fired, Horton says there is video evidence that exonerates her client.
“All they had to do was look at the videotape to know that she didn’t steal anything,” Horton said.
Horton said she will be amending the complaint to include the NFL Networks failure to reimburse her client for clothing that she had purchased as well as wage claims against the network.