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Back in March, Patrice Lataillade, the former Chief Operating Officer of Marc Jacobs, announced that he was suing the company for unspecified damages after he was terminated from his position. The firing came soon after Lataillade sent an e-mail to MJ head honchos describing the "rampant harassment" of employees by President Robert Duffy. The Post reports that Duffy displayed gay porn in his office and made employees look at it, that he compiled a nudie book of Marc Jacobs employees, and that he even asked one employee to do a little pole dance for him. The suit also claims that Duffy was using company money as his own personal piggy-bank, and Lataillade claims that his outing of the president is what got him canned.
However, now it's Lataillade who's being accused of theft. The company fought back in its own lawsuit, claiming that Lataillade "inflated the public company's financial performance by millions of dollars so he could collect big-buck bonuses." And it was quite a lot of book cooking. In total, the "false and inflated entries" are over $20 million
And there's more. Lataillade's job was a cushy one (the Post says he pulled in $1 million per year), but there were also a ton of perks on top of that. According to court papers, Lataillade's position also awarded him "an annual automobile allowance of $10,000, annual round-trip airfare to Paris for Lataillade and his family, and additional compensation for tuition fees for Lataillade's children." Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
· Marc Jacobs COO fired for 'cooking books' not harassment: court filings [NY Post]
· Marc Jacobs President Accused of Demanding Employee Pole Dance [Racked NY]