Rapper and co-owner of The Source magazine, Raymond “Benzino” Scott, along with the Chief Executive Officer David Mays (the other co-owner), were named in a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit brought by two former female Source executives.
They are being sued for “committing sexual discrimination, sexual
harassment and unlawful retaliation against women,” according to MTV.com. The allegations come just a few days after Benzino resigned as the chief brand executive of the magazine in part because of ongoing battles with the artist Eminem, but mostly because of him growing tired of the politics involved in being a top African American executive, according to a press release from The Source.
Kim Osorio, the first female Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, and former Vice President of Marketing, Michelle Joyce filed charges with the Equal Opportunity Commission on Monday claiming that ”female employees were consistently discriminated against on the basis of their gender in favor of male employees, particularly with respect to hiring, promotions, compensation and benefits, working hours and discipline.”
Both women claim that they were unfairly terminated after speaking against this treatment and taking action against it. Osorio spoke to MTV.com about her unwarranted termination.
“After dedicating five years to The Source, I could no longer endure the blatant gender discrimination and harassment so I spoke up, but it only hurt the situation because I was fired shortly thereafter,” she said. “Unfortunately, discrimination and harassment in the workplace is very common and now I must speak out for all women who have been victims of this same type of treatment.”
Benzino, on the other hand, spoke candidly to Clover Hope of AllHipHop.com about the situation and claimed that the women’s case is directly related to being angry for being fired and that their relationship was purely business-oriented.
“Basically Kim Osorio, we had let go, we had terminated a man for her to get that job,” he said. “So now that we terminated her for a man, she’s screaming sexual discrimination. What we’re gonna do is counter sue her because that’s totally false, especially when we have proof of her having many sexual relations with a lot of the artists that she was actually interviewing a lot. And we will counter sue her for defamation of character and then after that, we’ll just let the courts decide it.”
Other allegations include inappropriate yelling and cursing at female employees, threats of physical violence, and sexual harassment so severe that it made the work environment unbearable.
