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I’m not Papa John’s crude jackass: Schnatter
The latest dish from Papa John just got delivered with “extra sleaze.”
Papa John’s founder John Schnatter is accusing a top director and senior executives of indulging in disgusting, “frat club” antics on the job — despite the fact that the company blasted him for bad behavior of his own as it ousted him over a series of racially tinged controversies.
In an Aug. 17 letter obtained by The Post, Schnatter alleges that Papa John’s director Mark Shapiro — who is also copresident of Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel’s talent agency WME-IMG — repeatedly expressed a desire “to f--k” a female Papa John’s board member.
Shapiro, who chairs the Papa John’s corporate governance committee, allegedly said he’d “travel a day early to a board meeting to accomplish this,” according to the letter, which was sent to the company’s head of human resources, Robert Smith, and copied to Chairwoman Olivia Kirtley and Shapiro himself.
“John is making this up,” Shapiro told The Post in a Wednesday statement. “While I understand he’s doing everything in his power to regain control of Papa John’s, that doesn’t excuse denigrating others.”
Reps for Schnatter de- clined to comment.
Schnatter’s dirt-filled, 61page letter likewise took aim at Chief Legal Officer Caroline Oyler, who told Schnatter, according to the founder, “on multiple occasions, that she wants “to f--k” Rick Pitino,” the former head coach of the University of Louisville basketball team.
“Ms. Oyler has asked me to call her if I was out with Mr. Pitino so that she could ‘hook-up with him,’” according to Schnatter, who was a friend of the coach at the time. Pitino got fired last year after a “pay-for-play” probe into Louisville’s recruiting practices.
“The statement attributed to me is disgusting and totally false,” Oyler responded in a statement. “I never said that and never would.”
Elsewhere, Schnatter’s letter calls Edmond Heelan, head of North American operations, the “Leader of the ‘Frat Boys’ ” — a group of 11 Papa John’s executives who are allegedly so favored by CEO Steve Ritchie that Ritchie condones their “inappropriate behavior.”
According to Schnatter’s al- legations, Heelan mocked a Papa John’s vendor as “gay” and blasted a corporate event that celebrated Martin Luther King Day, telling a colleague that “it was ridiculous for us to make such a big deal out of MLK Day just because we had formed a [Diversity & Inclusion] committee.”
Papa John’s didn’t specifically respond to the allegations about Heelan, but Ritchie, who had been Schnatter’s handpicked successor before the fallout, responded with a statement.
“Schnatter has repeatedly targeted me with misleading statements to serve his own agenda,” Ritchie said in the statement. “My focus is and has always been on doing what is right for the company and our stakeholders.”
The special committee of the Papa John’s board of directors shot back that Schnatter was “making reckless, salacious allegations in his attempt to regain control.”
“The appropriate place to review any allegation is through the ongoing cultural audit and investigation, which is being conducted with the assistance of an independent outside firm,” the board committee said.
“John Schnatter is being hypocritical,” the committee added. “Many of these supposed events took place during the period when John Schnatter was responsible for the management of the company as CEO.”