Debrahlee Lorenzana Says Citigroup Fired Her Because She Was Too Hot

A New York City woman has sued Citigroup for firing her because she was just too good-looking, reports the Village Voice.

Debrahlee Lorenzana, a 33-year-old single mother, worked in a midtown Citigroup branch and apparently irked her coworkers with her style of dress. "As a result of the shape of her figure," the Voice quotes her lawsuit, "such clothes were purportedly 'too distracting' for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear."

Lorenzana's lawsuit, filed in December of 2009, is one of a recent spate of sexually charged cases against major banks. Earlier this year, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs both faced lawsuits from working mothers who claimed they were "mommy-tracked" and essentially demoted after they got pregnant.

Forbes also chronicled the plight of several female Citigroup employees, who claim that their gender played a role in their being let go from the bank during the financial crisis. The Citi lawsuits, Forbes suggested, are part of a growing number of discrimination claims being brought against employers by women on Wall Street. Female employment in finance, Forbes notes, is falling faster than male employment: "In the two years since December 2006, when employment in the sector hit a peak for the past decade, female employment has fallen 4.7% to 3.8 million, while male employment has dropped 3.2% to 2.1 million, according to the government's Current Employment Statistics survey."

Lorenzana's case, if it is to believed, focuses specifically on her style of dress and appearance, a subject she says she discussed at length with Citigroup HR before being dismissed. Here's more from the Voice:

...the managers gave her a list of clothing items she would not be allowed to wear: turtlenecks, pencil skirts, and fitted suits. And three-inch heels. "As a result of her tall stature, coupled with her curvaceous figure," her suit says, Lorenzana was told "she should not wear classic high-heeled business shoes, as this purportedly drew attention to her body in a manner that was upsetting to her easily distracted male managers."

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing," Lorenzana recalls. "I said, 'You gotta be kidding me!' I was like, 'Too distracting? For who? For you? My clients don't seem to have any problem.'"

Read the full story at The Village Voice here.

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Comments

[Moe Sislak]

07:23 PM on 06/09/2010

Looks like she did a whole series in 2003 about how much she likes plastic surgeries (including 2 boob jobs) and how she wants to be a playboy model and get herself a Clooney or Affleck.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/06/09/2010-06-09_lorenzana_had_two_boob_jobs.html

It's OFFICIAL, she's just trying to get media attention with a false lawsuit so she can be the model she's always wanted to be but couldn't without controversy. I hope Citi counter sues her right into the poor house. All that BS about being harassed her whole life for her looks, and the whole time she's been paying and cutting herself up FOR that attention.

[cmdr hlamb]

07:56 AM on 06/09/2010

uh, dont hate me because i'm beautiful?........

[longnow]

07:48 AM on 06/09/2010

I guess I'm talking simple input of customer info
and getting it right. She tried writing a letter of complaint
and that didn't turn out so good. All this stuff about the
males being distracted was nonsense to cover something
else and that something else might have to do with how
she made her living before Citi. Someone recognized her
and...

[oberon123]

11:25 PM on 06/08/2010

I am still confused as to why she was not allowed to wear turtlenecks.

[PandJonB]

10:19 PM on 06/08/2010

Are we in the US or some uptight theocracy. How insecure can these Banker manager guys get. I think that she confronted their macho image and posed a threat to stealing their clients away from them. Good for her. Hope that she wins big time!

[amber15]

07:42 PM on 06/08/2010

if she were in a muslim country she would be forced to wear a burqa with only her eyes showing..............

[oberon123]

11:16 PM on 06/08/2010

I think you mean Arab country, teabag. Most Muslims are from countries where women dont wear burqas, something you would know if you actually ever read a book or visited another country.

[amber15]

01:42 AM on 06/09/2010

List of Muslim Countries............
http://arabicpaper.tripod.com/country.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

Most muslims are from countries where women DO wear burqas...........in fact, A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear immodest clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, therefore, women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe...........

http://bit.ly/d7m7v3

http://bit.ly/9258lb

http://huff.to/drq8S7

[amber15]

01:47 AM on 06/09/2010

Wearing of the burqa is enforced by sharia, i.e. Muslim law - the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and is enforced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Taliban's Islamic Emirate required women to cover not only their head but their face as well, because "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them.

Veiling among school girls became increasingly common following the 9/11 Attack of 2001, due to coercion by "fathers and uncles and brothers and even their male classmates" of the school girls. "Girls who did not conform were excoriated, or chased, or beaten by fanatical young men meting out Islamic justice."

In Basra Iraq, "more than 100 women who didn't adhere to strict Islamic dress code" were killed between the summer of 2007 and spring of 2008 by Islamist militias (primarily the Mahdi Army) who controlled the police there, according to the CBS news program 60 Minutes.

Islamists in other countries have been accused of attacking or threatening to attack the faces of women in an effort to intimidate them from wearing of makeup or allegedly immodest dress.

[LaurieAnn]

05:22 PM on 06/07/2010

If Ms. Lorenzana did not violate the written company dress code then she has a valid case. Corporations should not have different standards for different individuals based on body type.

[longnow]

02:46 PM on 06/07/2010

I read the VV article and my impression is this:
Lorenzana is, of course, lying.
The female author of the article is, of course, lying.
The supervisors at Citi are, of course, lying.
Lorenzana's writing/ typing/ language skills are probably
behind all the lying.

[Flying Sparkz1]

04:02 PM on 06/08/2010

She was a business banker, not a secretary, and evidently she was good at it.

[ShockingReality]

11:56 AM on 06/07/2010

Ms Lorenzana Looks just like the girl that advertised for $150 an hour on TER (The Erotic Review) and TBD (The Big Doggie) for the past few years. The sex-provider's website is now down, all her reviews have been pulled from both boards and her old phone number is now disconnected. Could it be her shopping for that $100,000 a year clothing habit was subsidized with sex-work? And now she is upset that someone at her bank may have seen something that smeared the Bank's reputation and did her a favor? If she wasn't the same girl that used those same photos of excessive cleavage on the escort sites, then how did she earn enough money to purchase the clothing a Zara's that she claims she owned? To me, she looks like a typical girl from Puerto Rico and isn't pretty, sexy or a Babe as her lawyer calls her. She looks like everyone in the Bronx and her clothing doesn't fit very well. If my secretary sported a daily Camel-Toe I would have to ask her to be more respectful of the other staffers and dress more appropriately. Also, another publication stated that she tried to launch a sexual harassment suit years ago – could it be she needs more shopping money only?

[rodeman]

05:41 PM on 06/07/2010

"She looks like everyone in the Bronx and her clothing doesn't fit very well."

Well that settles it, New York here I come.

[queeninjun]

06:35 PM on 06/07/2010

Zara is not expensive clothing. I mean, if you're used to shopping at Wal-Mart, I guess it's expensive.

[RustNeverSleeps]

01:00 AM on 06/07/2010

I would love to work with her.

[BowlingForRevenge]

09:08 PM on 06/06/2010

I've read several articles about this woman including Maureen Dowd's op-ed in the NYT's.
I've looked at pictures of the woman and she is very very attractive and her clothing looks very tight. BUT that is MY Opinion.
I worked many many years in high end retail clothing in sales and management in Dallas TX.
When it comes to the Latino customer male or female...tighter is better.
The men like their shirts tapered close to the body and their suits are always European cut as opposed to the boxier American style.
Males and females alike prefer their jeans poured on.
The women always wore one size smaller than what I would have chosen....they and their husbands/boyfriends preferred that way.
Believe me neither males nor females are required to have good figures or physiques as a pre-requisite for the tight clothing.
I believe it is just cultural.

[Palaver]

05:43 PM on 06/06/2010

Affirmative action for hot women in the workplace? That something I can jump on.

Kidding. The office politics behind this decision is obviously more complicated. Though, a lie wouldn't stray far from the truth. It probably does have something to do with sex.

[O Really]

01:33 PM on 06/06/2010

Where is Gloria AllGreed when you need her? News conference at 11:00.

[Bristol Stitch]

10:44 AM on 06/06/2010

First off, gentlemen, take heart! There is a logical woman in this world...ME!
Her shoes, unacceptable for a business environment. Wanna wear FMP? Go clubbing!
Clingy, form fitted clothing, whether you are fat or thin or Salma Hayek hot- Unacceptable!
Throwing an "I'm gonna show up without makeup looking like a drowned rat" tantrum because you think you're being picked on for being pretty- unacceptable!
Sitting back and thinking your management staff has nothing better to do than make sure you have the necessary training when it is YOUR job to remind them to provide it- Unacceptable AND stupid!
Claiming you can't afford to buy new clothing when you admit to owning Vuitton, Hermes and Armani- Beyond Stupid and Unacceptable.

This woman could have purchased perfectly acceptable clothing at Target, Walmart, Kmart, ShopKo. You cannot tell me they do not have those is NYC.

She was not fired for being too hot. She was fired for lack of proper training and repeated non compliance with managerial guidance. She deserves to be fired. She deserves NO unemployment compensation! I pity her son for the example he is being given.

[queeninjun]

06:40 PM on 06/07/2010

Well, they don't have Wal-Mart in NYC. Don't you know how hard NYC residents have worked to keep that retailer out of the city? And honestly, clothes from Target might be all right, but you cannot show up to work in Wal-Mart clothes unless you want to look cheap and poorly dressed. You need to look decent in banking. Everyone else wears the labels in banking, why shouldn't she? If you're saying that the clothes there are cheap enough to buy, they are, but I'd never wear a suit from any of those stores. People who do look like lifelong less-than-middle managers. And you can certainly sue an employer for not offering proper training, even if you didn't 'remind' them that you needed it. Isn't one of the management's foremost jobs to ensure their employees have the proper training? Without training, how do you expect the employees to do their jobs and make managers look good?

[MysteriousStranger]

08:10 PM on 06/07/2010

Oh please.. Heels are not FMP's. Some people think that clothes from Target, Walmart and Shopko
are cheap and look cheap.

[jmink]

03:06 AM on 06/06/2010

She is reallly hot and I think they should leave her alone.