A female boss sexually assaulted a cook by masturbating him inside the kitchen of a non-profit residential facility for the needy, a new lawsuit claims.
Dwayne Lewis says his abuse at the hands of Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, Inc. supervisor Kimberly O’Gba also included the boss hitting his butt with a towel in front of a co-worker and rubbing her breasts against him while at work, according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed Tuesday morning.
The 51-year-old Bronx man — who began working at the Abraham Residence branch of the Jewish Board in Carnegie Hill in 2018 — claims things got out of hand when O’Gba cornered him in the residence’s kitchen on Oct. 16 and asked him if his wife “sexually satisfies him,” the suit says.
O’Gba then allegedly “pulled down the zipper of his pants and then grabbed his penis and stroked it, and physically sexually assaulted and attacked plaintiff on the premises and caused him to ejaculate,” the suit claims.
The married father of five told The Post that as a kid he was molested by two family members, and he froze up because of his former trauma.
“It had me in a daze,” Lewis said of the Oct. 16 incident. “I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It opened up a door to my past that I tried so hard to bury. It causes problems in my household because my wife wants to know why we aren’t being as intimate as we were,” Lewis said.
And Lewis was generally “forced to work in a sexually charged environment,” the suit alleges, adding that employees drank on the job and also had sex with coworkers and social workers.
Lewis had already spoken to the company about O’Gba’s sexual harassment before the October incident, and the Jewish Board was investigating another male employee’s complaint against her. Then, Nov. 7 Lewis filed a formal complaint of his own, the court documents say.
And in the wake of his complaint, Lewis was suspended Nov. 13 after a bogus investigation was opened up into him, the suit claims.
The lawsuit says the next month Lewis discovered that someone reported to the New York State Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs that he had abused a resident of the facility — which houses formerly homeless people with mental disabilities, according to the Jewish Board’s website.
Lewis’ lawyer, Mark Shirian, said his client “vehemently denies these false allegations that have been made against him.”
“I’ve been suspended for two months,” Lewis said. “They took my kids’ Christmas away. I wasn’t able to buy them anything.”
O’Gba was also suspended, Shirian said.
“Mr. Lewis is one of several men who complained about sexually harassing behavior in the workplace perpetrated by Ms. O’Gba,” Shirian said. “The Jewish Board failed to take any action and allowed my client to become a victim.”
Reached by phone, O’Gba said, “it’s all lies…there is no proof that I did anything.”
O’Gba would not confirm whether she was still suspended and declined to comment any further.
“We don’t comment on pending litigation,” Jewish Board rep Chris Giglio said.