"Since the EEOC was the only remaining office or agency in possession of plaintiff's EEOC file, then the Borrelli firm's actions of destroying plaintiff's paper file have clearly proven detrimental to plaintiff's case," Wotorson said in the letter demanding a criminal investigation.
The Borrelli firm, in a letter to Go, said Corrado's suggestion that the firm did anything wrong is "outrageous, incredulous, unsubstantiated by any facts, rooted in fantasy and delusional." Borrelli associate Bennitta Joseph signed the letter.
"Thousands of EEOC files were destroyed by [the July] flood," Joseph said in the letter. "Yet plaintiff contends our office and the EEOC manufactured the flood, damaged city property as well as thousands of files, created countless man hours and drained the city's already tapped resources, simply to 'sabotage' the Plaintiff's case. Plaintiff's decision to reduce these bizarre arguments to paper and present them to Your Honor is concerning and speaks volumes."
In an interview, Joseph and Coleman said the firm never had the original EEOC file and, as a routine practice, shredded the paper copy it received after scanning it into the firm's electronic storage system.
Joseph said the entire file, including the EEOC documents, was converted to disk and sent to Corrado shortly after their relationship was terminated. The Borrelli lawyers said the destruction of non-original documents is common practice as more and more firms and government agencies convert to paperless offices.
Corrado, in an email, said she "never alleged a conspiracy between the EEOC and the Borrelli firm" and said there was no need for Joseph to "[c]all me such reprehensible…vile, unsubstantiated names." She also said the disk she received from the Borrelli firm was fragmented, incomplete and did not contain the entire EEOC file. Corrado is accusing the firm of spoliation.
"We stated facts, as reported by the EEOC and as reported by the Borrelli firm, that my EEOC file was lost in a flood sustained at the EEOC offices and that the same file was destroyed by the Borrelli firm within the same period of time, making both occurrences highly suspicious and questionably irregular," Corrado said. "Borrelli's firm says and does whatever is convenient, without any appreciation of their claims, because their legal exposure is very real and significant."
Go has scheduled a conference on the matter for Dec. 14.
Meanwhile, Grossman said the EEOC is working with employees and employers to recreate lost documents in open cases.
"There have been very few individuals who have come forward to express concern that their rights have been impacted," Grossman said. "I am not saying that people's rights haven't been impacted and there hasn't been harm done, but it's not as if there is a damaged person for every file destroyed. And we never stopped our intake function. We didn't miss a beat on that."
Subscribe to New York Law Journal
