By Kevin
A former Morgan Stanley wealth manager thought he was doing the right thing by reporting a possible pedophile coworker — only to be drummed out when the guy turned out to be the son of a wealthy client, a new lawsuit charges.
Former employee Jorge Romero says in his Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that coworker and financial adviser Luke DeNigris “repeatedly showed plaintiff sexually suggestive and disturbing material,” including an email chain that had what Romero thought included a child pornography photo in January 2017.
Romero says he reported it to management, and soon after, his office partner — who had DeNigris’ dad as an important client — warned him, “You better get a f–king lawyer,” the court papers allege.
The coworker told Romero that DeNigris, a trainee, and his dad, Mark, a Long Island dentist, would sue him, the suit says.
The father and son would also make sure to ruin his career and ruin him financially, his partner told him, according to the court documents.
Morgan Stanley conducted an internal investigation and found that none of the material was child porn, although DeNigris was reprimanded over the 2017 email, The Post previously reported.
The missive contained a photo that appeared to have been taken from Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die’’ site, a source had said. The picture, viewed by The Post last year, shows a naked baby touching his genitals.
DeNigris had also shown him a video of a man “putting his penis in the mouth of a large fish,” a group of college men “urinating on another man,” porn videos, bestiality videos and a violent video of a classmate shooting, the suit alleges.
Romero says he “repeatedly told DeNigris that he had no desire to see such materials and that he found the materials to be offensive,” the suit says.
In the wake of reporting the incident, Romero says, he dreaded going to work, becoming “nauseated and throwing up virtually daily,” because things were so tense involving him, the court papers say.
Romero quit that November based on “the refusal by Morgan Stanley to properly investigate the e-mail incident” and because if he left later and took his clients with him, he could have been sued by the company because of a new change in policy, the suit claims.
DeNigris — reached at a number posted on the company web page — declined to comment.
Morgan Stanley, which had previously told The Post that the email was”inappropriate,” did not immediately return a request for comment.
“This lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jorge Romero now because he felt the need to speak up against harassment and retaliation at his workplace,” Romero’s lawyer Zarrina Ozari said.
