New York Paralegal Blog

PORTLAND , Ore. – Willamette Tree Wholesale, Inc. has agreed to pay $150,000 to four Latino farmworkers to resolve a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, two sisters who worked at Willamette Tree’s Molalla, Ore., farm faced extreme sexual harassment. One was taken to remote areas of the farm by a supervisor, coerced with pruning shears, threatened with termination and bodily harm and sexually assaulted repeatedly over several months. When informed by a coworker of the situation, Willamette Tree failed to investigate or respond. Ultimately, the woman was fired when she refused her supervisor’s demands, according to the EEOC. The other sister faced graphic sexual comments, propositions and groping by the same supervisor as well as a crew leader. The EEOC’s lawsuit alleged that instead of taking appropriate action when she and her husband reported the h...

BOSTON—A California man was arrested this morning on federal charges that he defrauded investors out of more than $5 million. LYNDON LYDELL PARRILLA, 31, of Los Angeles, is charged with wire fraud arising out of the operation of Green Tree Capital. According to the complaint, Parrilla, through Green Tree, solicited more than $5 million from customers, purportedly for the purpose of trading in the foreign currency exchange (FOREX) market. It is alleged that Parrilla traded, at most, a small portion of customer funds in FOREX and instead spent most of it on personal expenses, including more than $950,000 at casinos and approximately $130,000 to purchase a car. Between October 2009 and February 2011, Parrilla also withdrew more than $2.1 million in cash from Green Tree customer accounts. During that same time period, Green Tree continued to e-mail account statements to customers purporting to show trading gains and losses. In many instances, the account statements showed that customers’...