Some like it hot — just not the bosses at Citibank, a lawsuit claims.
Debrahlee Lorenzana, a curvy Queens brunette, said she was dressing professionally, but her male bosses and co-workers still found her too steamy and fired her.
“Everything I wore was professional, things everybody wears in corporate America,” Lorenzana, 33, told The Post yesterday. “The way they looked at what I wore was very disappointing.”
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Lorenzana, 33, went to work as a business banking officer at Citibank’s Chrysler Building branch in September 2008.
“Shortly after the commencement of her employment, branch manager Craig Fisher and assistant branch manager Peter Claibourne began articulating inappropriate and sexist comments concerning plaintiff’s clothing and appearance,” her Manhattan court filing says.
She was told “she must refrain from wearing certain items of clothing, in particular, turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, fitted business suits, or other properly tailored clothing,” the suit says.
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“In blatantly discriminatory fashion, plaintiff was advised that as a result of the shape of her figure, such clothes were purportedly ‘too distracting’ for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear.”
The sexy single mom pointed out to her bosses “that other female colleagues wore similar professional attire,” and that some dressed far more provocatively, the filing says.
But her supervisors shot back that those women didn’t have to worry about turning them on “as their general unattractiveness rendered moot their sartorial choices, unlike plaintiff,” the papers say.
Lorenzana was also told that “as a result of her tall stature, coupled with her curvaceous figure, she should not wear classic high-heeled business shoes, as this purportedly drew attention to her body in a manner that was upsetting to her easily distracted male managers.”
“She was punished because her male bosses couldn’t handle their libidos,” Lorenzana’s lawyer, Jack Tuckner, said.
The fed-up femme fatale made a formal complaint to HR in May of last year, and asked for a transfer. She was finally transferred in July, but matters didn’t improve at the next branch, where she said she was chided for failing to recruit new customers. She was axed in August.
Lorenzana’s gender-discrimination suit was dismissed last month because her deal with Citibank called for any disputes to be settled in private arbitration. She’s pressing her case there.
In a press release, Citibank said, “We believe this lawsuit is without merit and we will defend against it vigorously.”