UNEQUAL JUSTICE
Kept abusive broker but fired ex-addict: lawsuit
Apparently one thing that can get you fired from Morgan Stanley is cleaning up your act.
A former New Jersey broker for the Wall Street bank was deemed a “reputational risk” and fired after publishing a November 2017 memoir about getting sober after years of bad behavior, The Post has learned.
The move to oust the broker was made even though the bad behavior occurred years before he joined Morgan Stanley in January 2006.
And, even more stupefying to the broker, Craig Schmell, was that his ouster came while the bank took no apparent steps to discipline a second broker who it knew, over the course of 15 years, was accused by four women of assaults and threats.
“Their priorities are all upside down and backwards,” Schmell told The Post in an interview last week.
“It’s amazing that a guy who [allegedly] beats his wife and had four restraining orders against him, that that’s the guy they keep.”
Schmell was fired on Oct. 31, about two weeks before he published, “The Uninvited: How I Crashed My Way Into Finding Myself,” a book that recounts his drunken exploits and his recovery starting in 1990, according to court documents.
“The Uninvited” includes stories about him crashing star-studded events — like a party on Donald Trump’s yacht in 1987 and the 1988 Grammy awards.
Schmell agreed last June to extensive manuscript edits to remove references to doing drugs like mushrooms and cocaine, court papers claim.
But in August, executives at the bank panicked about the book and asked for fur- ther edits to remove all references to his past life, it is alleged.
“As previously discussed, many of the items you discuss in your book surrounding the conduct in which you engaged before your recovery creates a reputational risk which the firm cannot live with,” Schmell’s boss told him in a letter.
If Schmell didn’t get rid of those references — and push back the publication date — his employment would be “terminated,” the boss said.
Meanwhile, the second broker, a top producer for Morgan Stanley, and a subject of a Post article on March 29, who seemingly escaped discipline despite years of allegations against him, was only placed on administrative leave after a reporter from the New York Times, which first reported on the incidents, called the bank to inquire.
Schmell, 56, admits that he wasn’t among the bank’s biggest producers and, his records show, there were two disputes with customers.
But, he said, nobody in his office knew he was a recovering alcoholic and addict until he submitted the book manuscript for approval.
The ex-broker has sued the bank, claiming it unlawfully fired him — as it targeted him as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, a protected class n New Jersey.
“There is a drinking culture in all of Morgan Stanley, in all of Wall Street,” he said. “I didn’t want people to know because I didn’t know how people would react.”
The bank claims it was within its rights to fire him.
“We commend individuals like Mr. Schmell who have gone through recovery,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
“Upon review of Mr. Schmell’s book, we explained our concerns about him publishing a book detailing numerous misdeeds and touting his ‘gift of manipulation.’ We also told him that he could lose his job if he did not adequately address our concerns. While he agreed to make certain edits, the book he intended to publish still failed to sufficiently address them. He was therefore terminated.”