Hillary Clinton criticized Donald Trump on Monday over allegations that an employee at one of his golf courses was fired because he was gay.
In a lawsuit filed last year, Eleazar Andres, a former maintenance worker at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, claims coworkers called him homophobic slurs and attacked him with golf balls and rocks after he came out as gay in 2014. Andres alleges that supervisors did nothing to stop the harassment, and that he was hospitalized after a coworker hit him with a rock. After the incident, Andres filed a police report and told management he did not feel safe coming to work. He was subsequently fired from his job.
On Monday, Clinton said the incident spoke to how Trump would govern.
“It is deeply disturbing that instead of stepping in to stop the tormentors, Trump’s golf club turned on the victim for coming forward,” she said at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. “If that’s how Donald Trump runs his business, what does that say about how he would run our country?”
Andres sued Trump National for violating state discrimination law, as well as assault and battery. In court documents, lawyers for the golf course denied just about every single one of Andres’ claims. A judge referred the matter to a mediator for a resolution earlier this year, but it’s unclear if the parties reached an agreement. A message left with Andres’ lawyer was not immediately returned.
A spokesperson for the Trump organization said in a statement early Tuesday that the allegations in the lawsuit are false and that his employment was terminated for failure to show up for work. “At no time was Mr. Andres harassed, nor did he report harassment,” the spokesperson said. “The evidence in the case strongly demonstrates that Mr. Andres’ claims are completely meritless. We look forward to a complete dismissal of his claims when the evidence is presented to the court.”
Earlier this year, another employee at one of Trump’s Florida golf courses claimed in a lawsuit that she faced unwelcome sexual advances from a supervisor, according to USA Today. In 2010, a former server at a restaurant in Trump’s hotel in Chicago sued Trump International Hotel, claiming she was fired after she told a supervisor she had received unwanted sexual advances from a coworker.
Cristian Farias contributed reporting.
See the court document below:
This article has been updated to include comment from the Trump organization.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
Before You Go
