Jury rejects NY1 reporter's sex harassment suit

A Brooklyn federal jury Thursday took less than 40 minutes to reject fired reporter Adele Sammarco's sexual harassment suit against cable-news station New York 1, abruptly ending a 2-week-old trial that portrayed the station as a den of sexual high jinks.

"We didn't feel there was enough evidence to go against them," said forewoman Marie Gorini of Brooklyn, the only female on the panel, who described the trial - watching such on-air personalities as Roma Torre and Rebecca Spitz testify - as a "celebrity" experience like running into Madonna on the street.

The case featured testimony that a mocked-up photo of Sammarco with enlarged breasts was plastered around the NY 1 newsroom, that she was the butt of sex jokes and that news bosses were involved in sexual banter. Sammarco also testified that she was forcibly kissed by another reporter, who denied the incident.

Sammarco, 43, claimed that the station retaliated by firing her in 2001 when she complained about the atmosphere and her treatment. New York 1, owned by Time-Warner, and news bosses Steve Paulus and Peter Landis, both defendants, contended that her contract wasn't renewed because she was a bad reporter.

Sammarco, who had pursued the case since 2002 and had posed for tabloids with the doctored photo to vent her outrage, called the verdict "harsh" while leaving the courtroom. Paulus and Landis said they were gratified by the verdict.

"Anyone who knows our organization knows that none of this was true," Paulus said.

Paulus, who according to testimony led discussions about which members of the opposite sex would be best to sleep with, said he would likely be more circumspect in the future.

"In a litigious society, everyone behaves differently," he said.

The jury verdict came after closing arguments in which a Time-Warner defense lawyer belittled Sammarco as a self-centered woman who had lashed out with a sex harassment suit because her fantasies of greatness weren't realized at NY1.

"At the root of any psychological issues Ms. Sammarco has are her long-standing narcissistic personality traits," said Betsy Plevan, defense lawyer for the Time-Warner 24-hour cable news station and three of its executives. "That explains why she couldn't accept moving on and had to blame someone else. Indeed, it explains why we are here today."

She also referenced Sammarco's uneven performance as a witness at the trial, where she seemed to exaggerate some of her own journalistic accomplishments and disputed even tiny facts - such as the accuracy of a floor plan of the station's newsroom. While she was upset and had been hurt by her termination, Plevan said, that wasn't enough.

"You cannot award damages based on sympathy," she told jurors.

Gorini said she felt Sammarco had based much of her case on incidents that were typical workplace "lighthearted banter."

She said NY1 had acted quickly to reprimand the person responsible for the doctored photo, and jurors believed the claim of forcible kissing by another worker was "too vague."

She said the jurors agreed without hesitation, and the fact that she was the only woman on the panel made no difference. "I don't think it would have changed much if there were more women," she said.