The discrimination case against Robert De Niro goes to the jury: they will consider this case

A New York City civil jury will begin deliberating today whether Robert De Niro abused and discriminated against his longtime personal assistant Graham Chase Robinson, and whether Robinson misappropriated funds from the actor’s company, Canal, and stole office property, including millions of regular contributors. airline miles before resigning in 2019 after 11 years on De Niro’s payroll.

Jurors spent eight days in a federal courtroom hearing claims from De Niro, Robinson, their lawyers and a number of witnesses about who was responsible for the fallout in the small Manhattan office that housed the Oscar lookalike’s personal and business affairs. dealt with. The winner manages. apart from his film production and film festival activities.

The lawsuit, which included De Niro’s initial lawsuit and Robinson’s countersuit, opened a window into the privileged life of the award-winning actor, founder of the Tribeca Film Festival and owner of the Nobu restaurant and hotel chain.

On the witness stand last week, De Niro – who will be back in court today – denied that he bullied or harassed Robinson or that he paid her less than his longtime personal trainer because Robinson was a single woman.

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At one point, he burst into the courtroom and yelled, “Shame on you, Chase Robinson!” after telling one of Robinson’s lawyers, Andrew Macurdy, “There was never any indecency, disrespect or strangeness that you tried to imply.”

Robinson’s duties ranged from negotiating the actor’s “benefit packages” for film shoots to transporting him to the hospital for a back injury. Robinson herself testified that De Niro required her to be available by phone at all times — including weekends, holidays and days off — for tasks ranging from negotiating his filming “perk packages” to transporting her to the hospital for a back injury.

“It didn’t matter if you were in New York and your family was in Doha. “It didn’t matter if you were in New York and they were in Australia,” she said on the witness stand, “you took it regardless of the time and then helped them with whatever they needed.”

She also said that De Niro yelled at her and called her a “bitch” to her face, and that he sometimes asked her to scratch her back – a task she described as “creepy” and “just disgusting”. found

Robinson testified that she was not romantically interested in De Niro, although De Niro’s girlfriend, martial arts instructor Tiffany Chen, once emailed the actor to complain about Robinson’s “obstinate behavior and his insane, imaginary intimacy with you.” complain.

In court, Chen once defended himself by comparing Robinson to the stalker played by Jennifer Jason Leigh in the 1992 film: Single white woman.

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“I don’t know if she became psychotic, but I think she always had mental problems,” Chen testified.

Robinson’s lawyers said their client’s psychological devastation – and her incapacitation ever since – stemmed from her work for De Niro and a hostile Chen, which led to her being sued and the actor refusing to settle after her exit.

They are asking the jury to award Robinson unspecified damages for “emotional distress and reputational damage.”

Richard Schoenstein, a lawyer for De Niro, denied those claims in his closing statement to the jury on Wednesday.

“She’s not sad about back problems or the B word,” Schoenstein said. “She’s sad because she left Canal and didn’t get what she wanted. And she may be sad because the case ended up in court, but you can’t compensate her for that.”

Before Robinson resigned, she earned $300,000 a year as De Niro’s production and finance director at Canal — a lofty title De Niro said she gave “because she wanted to” — and with her from Los Angeles, London and Spain worked. Company paid vacation.

De Niro has been trying to reclaim Robinson’s salary for the last few years, alleging that she ran off with company property, transferred millions of Canal frequent flyer miles into a personal account and routinely used office funds for travel on personal errands.

Robinson’s lawyers said De Niro expressly gave Robinson wide discretion over spending and payouts as part of her compensation package and that his accountants never raised any red flags. It was only after Robinson resigned and demanded a settlement that Chen and a Canal attorney began looking for trouble.

“The defendants claim they are trying to rob them and steal all the money,” Robinson’s lawyer, Brent Hannafan, said in his closing argument on Wednesday. “This is someone who, when she found out she accidentally loaded her personal AmEx card, wrote a check and sent a message. That’s how conscientious she was, that’s how loyal she was.”