Thankfully, this young woman from MAine is blowing the lid on all the sleazy employment tactics of the "Everglades Club" in Palm Beach, FL. I think heads will roll.....she was raped by an illegal alien co-worker from Guatemala and was told to keep it quiet from her supervisors. Not bueno for them.

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Woman sues Everglades Club over 2006 rape; alleges discrimination, retaliation at Palm Beach venue

By MICHELE DARGAN
Daily News Staff Writer

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Jeffrey Langlois
(enlarge photo)
Melissa Legare and her attorney, Ted Babbitt, discuss reasons for filing a lawsuit against the Everglades Club at a news conference Wednesday.

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Rosters, rules and other previously secret information about the Everglades Club soon could become public in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the club Wednesday by a former employee who was raped there two years ago.

Melissa Legare, 22, a former pantry cook, awoke in the predawn hours of April 2, 2006, to a co-worker raping her in her dormitory room at the club.

Legare, then 20, fought off Esdras Cardona, an illegal resident from Guatemala, until he left the room and the police were called. Cardona, a dishwasher, was convicted of the rape last summer and is serving a 20-year sentence.

West Palm Beach attorney Ted Babbitt filed the lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, alleging the club failed to supply adequate and heightened security, failed to support her after the crime and failed to properly check Cardona's background.

Describing the club as "a festering sore on Worth Avenue" at a news conference Wednesday, Babbitt cited the club's "long and well-known history of discrimination against non-whites, non-Christians and women" in the lawsuit.

"What kind of a place is this?" Babbitt asked. "This is a place which, I believe, means that a person like Barak Obama would not feel comfortable having lunch there. Tiger Woods would not feel comfortable playing golf there. Venus Williams could not play tennis. Henry Kissinger or a victim of the Holocaust would not be welcome as a member. Who would want to be a member of a club like this? I would be embarrassed, ashamed to be a member of a club like this."

In the days following the attack, club managers Scott Lesee and James Masterson made matters worse by telling Legare to get back to work, return to the same room where she had been attacked and keep quiet about the rape, she said.

"They told me, 'Are you aware that this is in two newspapers?' making me feel as though it was my fault their name was out there," said Legare, who has returned to live in her home state of Maine. "They made me feel horrible, that I brought this upon myself. It was very intense for me. I felt very intimidated by them."

Babbitt said club management sought to keep the incident — and the club's actions — quiet.

"They made it quite clear to her that she had signed a confidentiality agreement and that if she spoke to anyone about this incident, she would be terminated," he said. "It was quite clear to her, and it's quite clear to me, that the whole purpose was to prevent their activities — what I think is a dirty little secret — from coming out."

When reached by phone on Wednesday, Masterson said he needed clearance from the club's human resources department to comment. Multiple calls to the department were not returned. An unidentified woman at the club answered the phone, declined to comment and hung up.

Palm Beach resident Bill Pannill, president of the Everglades Club, said he didn't know a lawsuit had been filed against the club and couldn't comment on it. He also said he didn't know the name of the attorney who would handle the lawsuit.

"We don't have one attorney for the club," he said. "Different attorneys handle different things."

Legare spoke softly and tearfully. A few months before the attack, she had reported to management that Cardona and others were peeping in her window while she undressed, she said.

"I feel that this should have never happened to me, and I am speaking up today because I do not want this to happen to anyone else. I was treated unfairly. ... I feel the discrimination on premises led to the violence that caused my rape to occur."

The lawsuit alleges that Hispanic and other minority employees were not allowed to wear name tags and were collectively referred to as "amigos" rather than by their names, while white employees wore name tags and were referred to by name.

In addition, the lawsuit says employees were segregated in dormitories according to ethnicity: One building predominantly housed U.S. citizens, a second building predominantly Hispanics and a third predominantly Eastern Europeans.

"These discriminatory acts breed an atmosphere of hostility and violence, which make it far more likely that an employee like Esdras Cardona would commit a violent act such as rape," the lawsuit states.

With the lawsuit, Babbitt filed papers seeking production of all the club's rules, regulations and other information pertinent to its application process.

"Are there any Jewish members in the Everglades Club? Let them come forward," Babbitt said. "Are there any African-American members in the Everglades Club? Let them come forward. There aren't any, and there aren't any because this is accomplished with a wink and a nod. It's accomplished by simply excluding these people."

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