Sex, Wall St. style
‘He grabbed my hand and led me to the bedroom’
The pretty Swedish underling who sued her Wall Street boss, saying he pressured her into having sex and fired her when she cut him off, took the stand in Manhattan federal court Monday — and tearfully told jurors she was terrified that he would fire her and revoke her visa.
“We went back to the outside of my apartment, and he wanted to come up for tea,” Hanna Bouveng, 25, said, recalling her first hookup with Benjamin Wey, 43.
The marriedwithkids CEO of New York Global Group had taken her to dinner at Babbo in Greenwich Village and given her an expensive Prada handbag as a bonus, she said.
“He came up, and we sat down on the couch,” Bouveng testified. “I sat on the other end and he asked me to come closer and I did, and then he put his arm around me and started kissing me on the neck.”
Her voice cracked as she told her tale. “Sorry,” she gasped before the fourman, fourwoman jury.
“Then he stood up and grabbed my hand, and we walked into the bedroom,” she continued. “And then he started to undress me. And he said he brought a box of condoms. And then we laid down to bed and we had sex.”
Asked by her lawyer, David Ratner, whether she kissed Wey, Bouveng answered sharply, “No.”
“I felt so used and weak, and I was so ashamed that I let this happen. That I’ve been through my entire life and nothing like this has ever happened. And everything that I’ve ever been — strong, independent — he just took that away from me. So I was not that person anymore,” she said, as an expressionless Wey looked on.
“I just put my clothes on, and then I said I was really tired and he left,” she added. “He just came into the office the next day and pretended as if nothing happened, as if everything was OK.”
Bouveng said Wey pressured her into sex three more times and that she didn’t tell anyone because she was ashamed and feared losing her visa or the Tribeca apartment he had been paying for.
“I just felt more and more weak. That I didn’t mean anything. That ev
erything that I felt and thought that it didn’t matter. I felt useless,” she testified.
“He would definitely fire me. He would kick me out of the apartment. He would revoke my visa. I thought that he was going to, you know, come after me. Like he said in the very beginning, no one ever said ‘no’ to him before.”
Ratner said in opening statements that Wey lasted only two minutes in the sack that night.
Before describing that quickie, Bouveng recounted an evening in the summer of 2013 when she met Wey at his house in the Hamptons and he invited her to lunch at The Capital Grille near Wall Street.
“He ordered wine for us. And when we got the wine, he asked me if he could move, jump over, and sit next to me. And so he did,” she testified.
“And then he started to talk about that he was lonely and that he needed someone in his life and that he needed someone that he could show the world. And that he wanted someone that could follow him everywhere and they would be in business class, and first class, and it would be great.
“And then, well, he basically said that he wanted a girlfriend.
“So I told him that I was not interested. ‘I think you have to keep on searching because I’m interested in a job. And I just can’t accept your proposal.’ ”
The next day, Wey called Bouveng to recruit her.
“He called me, and he basically said that he thought that I was brave that I would say no to him. Because a lot of people don’t say no to him. And that I should come in to discuss a position at his company,” she testified.
Bouveng said that after she began working for Wey, he pushed himself on her during business trips in Boston and Dubai.
“He only booked one room, so we went up to that room,” Bouveng said of their arrival at the Boston Harbor Hotel.
“He started to come close to me, started to kiss me on the neck. And he started to take off my coat. And then I asked him if he had condoms. And he said he hadn’t, but that it was OK anyway because he was clean. And then I said I didn’t want — that I didn’t want to do anything. And he said OK. And he went to the bathroom. And I just changed and went to bed,” Bouveng said.
Of the trip to Dubai, Bouveng said, “We got up to the room and, well, it was only one room.
“And he went to the bathroom. And I changed and went to bed, pretending I was falling asleep. And he crawled in the bed and pushed himself against me. And he asked me how I could be so tired all the time. But then I just ignored him, and he left me alone.”
Ratner introduced a photo of Wey with Bouveng and Princess Madeleine of Sweden at a 2013 charity event as he questioned her about the exec’s wife.
“Did Mrs. Wey ever go to any of those social events with you and Mr. Wey?” Ratner asked. “Rarely,” Bouveng replied. Wey fired Bouveng after finding her boyfriend naked in bed at the Tribeca apartment.
Wey has said he and Bouveng never had sex. His lawyer has said her claims amount to extortion.
Bouveng filed the $850 million lawsuit against him in July 2014 claiming sexual harassment, unlawful retaliation and defamation.
She retakes the stand Tuesday.