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Suit: Sexy gym ad ruined my rep
These gym ads were so steamy they helped ruin a Manhattan lawyer’s reputation, a lawsuit claims.
Steven Hammond, a former partner at the firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, says in a $10 million defamation suit that a hyper-sexualized Equinox campaign emboldened a gym employee to falsely accuse him of pleasuring himself in front of the employee in the steam room.
The gym’s 2016-17 “Commit to Something” ads featured images of five near-naked people “engaging in what could only be described as an ‘orgy,’ ” the suit says.
Those ads created an atmosphere where then-employee Michael Alexander could make up the “false” claim and it would be believed, according to the suit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The suit alleges Alexander was trying to “bolster his bargaining position” against Equinox, which had put the receptionist on a final warning for not showing up.
He was later fired and claims it was because he went public with his claims that while he was offduty using the steam room, Hammond stared at him for 15 seconds and began to pleasure himself.
“The idea is that patently unbelievable allegations would be believed because they were consistent with the image that Equinox portrayed of itself,” explained Alexander’s lawyer, Neal Brickman. “The false allegations could then be used as leverage against both Equinox and Mr. Hammond to obtain a monetary settlement.”
As a result of the May 21, 2018, accusation, Hammond’s 17-year membership was terminated. But the gym didn’t investigate until a month later, court papers claim.
Hammond, 66, who is now in Portugal trying to kick-start his international arbitration career, was criminally charged with public lewdness and exposure of a person.
The criminal case was later dismissed, but Hammond’s reputation was dragged through the mud following all the media coverage, the court papers charge.
“Because they have created this branding that sex is rampant at Equinox, it lends more credence to the fact that someone would feel comfortable engaging in a sexually explicit act in that environment,” said Brickman.
“Even if the allegation is false,” Brickman said someone could easily think, “‘Oh, yeah, that is the kind of stuff that goes on at Equinox.’ ”
Alexander sued Equinox last year in Manhattan Supreme Court and sued Hammond last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“We commenced a lawsuit against Mr. Hammond for the sexual assault, battery as well as threatening of my client should he report this heinous behavior,” said Alexander’s lawyer, Marc Held, calling Hammond’s suit “baseless and merely an attempt to intimidate my client and deflect from his own actions.”
An employee reached at the 14 Wall St. gym declined to comment. An Equinox spokesman said, “Equinox believes that this is a dispute purely between two individuals, Mr. Hammond and Mr. Alexander.”