A former Black legal assistant has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s favorite New Jersey defense attorney, Alina Habba. The woman says that her former boss harassed her by loudly and frequently screaming the N-word while listening to rap. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday.
And the lawsuit claims that Habba lost her composure earlier this year after losing a court battle to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is Black, and that she yelled violently, “I hate that black bitch!” in the aftermath of the loss.
The Daily Beast was tipped off about the lawsuit on Wednesday evening, and we were able to confirm that it was filed in Middlesex County, which is located in the state of New Jersey.
A request for comment from Habba was not immediately met with a response from the company.
Habba, a young and handsome lawyer with a terrifying TV personality and an aggressive courtroom style, has been Trump’s go-to defense attorney in multiple cases involving Trump and his family company. These lawsuits have been filed against Trump and his family company. According to a number of people who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, colleagues and lawyers supporting Trump do not get along with her acidic style.
Habba has been very harsh in its criticism of New York’s Attorney General, who is conducting an investigation into the Trump Organization for bank and insurance fraud. This investigation has been going on for several years and appears to be drawing to a close. In addition, it is anticipated that she would defend both the former president and his firm in the next trial, which will focus on establishing whether or not Trump personally directed his security guards to assault protestors who gathered in front of his corporate offices in Manhattan.
The lawsuit claims that Na’syia Drayton worked as a legal assistant at Habba Madaio & Associates, a tiny firm located in Bedminster, the same town that is home to the Trump National Golf Club. According to the lawsuit, Drayton was the only African-American employee at the company. Her name is included, in New York court filings that are unrelated to each other, as a person involved with Habba’s firm.
When Drayton was reached late on Wednesday night, she declined to comment on the case and referred any queries regarding the matter to her attorney in Princeton, Jacqueline Tillmann.
“My customer is a young lady who has a gentle demeanor and is not political. She’s 27. Tillmann told The Daily Beast that the woman worked as a legal secretary and was struggling to maintain her employment and provide for her family. “I do believe that it is regrettable that we were unable to come to some sort of compromise. It is my policy to make an effort to resolve conflicts.”
According to the lawsuit, Drayton began working with Habba at her former company and was fired during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak while they were both employed there.
Drayton was employed as a legal assistant by Habba when she left her previous firm and established her own practice. According to the allegations stated in the lawsuit, Habba and her new business partner, Michael Madaio, would frequently play loud hip-hop music and sing along to explicit lyrics, both of which reportedly caused Drayton a great deal of distress.
According to the allegations made in the lawsuit, Habba and Madaio “played and loudly sung multiple songs in the office with sexually explicit lyrics” on January 26, which Drayton considered to be “both racially insensitive and sexually improper within the context of the workplace.” According to Drayton, Habba and Madaio turned up DMX’s “Ruff Ryders Anthem,” Kanye West and Jay Z’s “N——s in Paris,” and Lil Wayne’s “Rich Ass Fuck.”
Drayton asserted that she “felt demeaned and violated” each and every time Habba used the word “N.”
According to the lawsuit, she was made to feel “humiliated, embarrassed, and uncomfortable in the workplace” as a result of listening to songs “that represented women as objects of male sexual enjoyment.”
Drayton claims that she started having panic attacks at work after Habba lost a court battle in Manhattan in April. At that time, Justice Arthur F. Engoron punished Trump for refusing to turn over evidence by ordering him to pay a $10,000 daily fine, which eventually added up to $110,000. Drayton claims that she started having panic attacks at work after Habba lost the court battle. After the hearing, Habba allegedly came out of her office “irate” and yelled, “I detest that Black bitch!”, according to Drayton’s allegations.
A copy of an email that Drayton sent to her superiors on June 9 with the subject line “Workplace climate feeling uncomfortable” is submitted as an exhibit to the lawsuit. The legal assistant reportedly indicated in the document that the music, Habba’s alleged statement regarding the New York attorney general, and other encounters made her uncomfortable. According to Drayton, Habba fired her as a direct consequence of this.
“It was tough to articulate these things. Carrying out these actions required a great deal of bravery. Tillmann told The Daily Beast late on Wednesday night that no one wants to be known as someone who causes trouble. “No one wants to be viewed as a troublemaker.” “When the slight climb to this level, one recalls them,” the author writes. The person who hired me to let a lot of things slide. But when the comment about Letitia James was made, then the music with supervisors singing those words… and singing “n——, n——, n——,” it does not feel good to be an employee.
“It’s not that my client believes Ms. Habba doesn’t have the right to be a Kanye fan or sing,” I explained to her, “but it’s still important to clarify.” It all depends on the time and the location. The workplace is not the appropriate setting for this discussion, especially when an employee expresses discomfort by stating, “This hurts me.”
