By Zilber
A former Wells Fargo executive gave unwanted massages to a female subordinate because she “looked tense,” invited her to his house to “exercise and shower with him” and threatened to deny her job opportunities if she didn’t date him, according to an explosive lawsuit.
Former senior vice president Carl Nelson and Wells Fargo are named in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on May 2 by an unidentified woman who was promoted to the position of vice president and senior portfolio manager in 2005, according to court filings.
The woman alleged in court papers that Nelson, who according to the legal filing was “a superior” within the company and thus “had the authority to determine whether” she received sales calls, subjected her to “sexually explicit comments and inappropriate touching” beginning in 2016.
“We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson told. “We just learned of the lawsuit on Wednesday and are reviewing it.”
According to the court filing, two of the woman’s assistants who are said to have witnessed Nelson’s alleged behavior would walk into her office when they noticed Nelson was there in an attempt to “block Nelson’s touching.”
On one occasion in 2016, the woman brought her fiancé to the office for lunch. According to court papers, Nelson began referring to her fiancé as a “boy toy” before he “proceeded to ask [her] to have dinner and wine with him instead,” it was alleged.
She alleged that the inappropriate behavior continued “even after reporting [it] to her immediate report and Human Resources,” according to court papers.
“For years, Wells Fargo did close to nothing to investigate [the woman’s] complaints of sexual harassment,” according to the court filing. “Thus, Nelson’s inappropriate behavior continued.”
Between 2018 and 2020, Nelson “used his authority and status to threaten” the woman “to see him outside of work,” according to the court filing.
She alleged in court papers that Nelson “would tell [her] that he would not give her any sales opportunities.. unless she went out with him.”
The woman claimed in court documents that she complained about Nelson’s alleged behavior to her manager, Tim Smith.
Smith, whose purported LinkedIn page lists him as a regional investment manager at Wells Fargo, allegedly told the woman to respond to Nelson’s alleged invitations to go out with him by telling Nelson that she “only works during business hours,” according to the court filing.
Smith was not immediately available for comment. He did not respond to a request sent to his purported LinkedIn page.
The woman alleged in the court filing that she “asked Smith to remove her from all business accounts associated with Nelson” because she “could no longer bear the thought of working” with him.
But Smith allegedly refused to do so, “thus forcing her to continue working with Nelson,” court papers alleged.
Smith is also alleged to have subjected the woman to sexist insults, telling her “You yell too much” or “You speak too loud,” according to court documents.
In October 2020, the woman alleged that she was laid off by the company “because of COVID-19.”
But the lawsuit alleged that the bank laid her off by using the pandemic as a “pretext,” according to court papers.
“There is a seemingly entrenched apathetic culture at Wells Fargo wherein men in positions of power are left undeterred so long as they produce money for the bank,” the woman’s attorney, Ron Zambrano, told.
Zambrano added: “Wells Fargo should have done much more to not only stop this conduct, but to prevent it from going forward. Enough is enough.”
Zambrano is also representing a former Wells Fargo employee who alleged that she was drugged and raped by Eric R. Pagel, a senior investment strategist at the bank, in a Bakersfield, Calif. hotel room in late January 2020.
