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THE INDEPENDENT
Salesmen at a Long Island, New York, Mercedes dealership routinely offered discounts on vehicles to “select female customers” in exchange for sex, a former employee alleges.
In a federal discrimination lawsuit filed Monday and obtained by The Independent, Talita Paulino, who was hired last year at Mercedes-Benz of Massapequa as a sales consultant, claims another employee, a “product concierge,” shared videos of buyers providing sexual favors for discounts in the dealership’s cars.
“Give them a good discount, and they’ll do anything,” the salesman allegedly said, according to Paulino’s complaint, which adds that she heard him say he had “lost count” of how many women had agreed to such trades.
On another occasion, Paulino, 29, says she watched her boss shove his hand down a female client’s pants and fondle her buttocks while offering her a special deal, after which the two of them drove away in his personal car.
The alleged behavior extended to staffers like Paulino, who contends the boss withheld crucial information from saleswomen unless they let him touch them “in a sexual manner.”
When Paulino brought up the situation to a female colleague, her complaint says the woman responded, “You just have to ignore it and let them be men.”
“Everybody should work at a place where they are respected and treated with dignity,” attorney Joshua Paul Frank, who is representing Paulino, told The Independent. “This obviously goes far beyond that.”
In an email, Ana Shields, the lawyer representing Mercedes-Benz of Massapequa, said, “The Dealership strongly denies the allegations as they are baseless and without merit. Additionally, after investigating the matter, the Dealership has no knowledge of the alleged discounts in exchange for sexual favors and vehemently denies that this occurred. We have found no evidence to support the Plaintiff’s claims and intend to defend this matter vigorously. Since this matter is in active litigation, we will not be commenting further.”
Messages sent to co-defendant Automotive Management Services, Inc. (AMSI), which oversees the dealership, went unanswered. AMSI is owned by reclusive West Palm Beach billionaire Terry Taylor, the largest private owner of auto dealerships in the nation. He also did not reply to emails seeking comment.
Paulino began working at Mercedes-Benz of Massapequa on April 26, 2024, and almost immediately found herself being objectified by higher-ups, according to her complaint. During her second week on the job, it says the sales manager took Paulino for a ride in a new GLE 350 to “demonstrate to her the model’s features.” But when the sales manager pulled into the parking lot of a 7-11 and said, “I can tell you like me,” Paulino told him she was in a committed relationship, the complaint goes on.
“Oh come on, you wouldn’t cheat?” the complaint says he replied, to which Paulino said, “Absolutely not. Let’s head back.”
As time went by, Paulino saw the sales manager “strok[ing] and caress[ing]” female employees in an inappropriate way, and making “sexual and perverted remarks to them,” the complaint continues. However, when Paulino rebuffed the sales manager’s advances, her rejections visibly “angered him,” according to the complaint. Those women who played along were given more opportunities to make sales, and Paulino soon felt obligated to give in to the manager’s demand for “hugs,” in order to earn a living…