A former waiter at swank Manhattan eatery Jean Georges has filed suit against the restaurant, claiming he was continually harassed by other members of the staff because he is gay.
Joseph Bassani claims that at a party for a departing chef de cuisine, staff members hired a female prostitute who engaged him in a simulated sex act. According to the NY Daily News, “the prostitute, who was naked, pushed him onto the top of one of the dining room tables [and] straddled him. Bassani shut his eyes and froze waiting for the assault to end.” According to the papers filed, “[the woman charged at Bassani, pushed him onto the top of one of the dining room tables, straddled him, and began to gyrate … within inches of his face.”
Bassani says that other members of the staff called him a “whore” and suggested he was “dying of AIDS” after he had lost some weight.
The restaurant, which is located in the Trump International Hotel and Tower, says that Bassani left in January 2006 on good terms.
