Former Sussex County Democratic Chairman Charles W. Cart faces allegations of discrimination that surfaced yesterday, a day after he pleaded not guilty to federal embezzlement charges.
Cart is being sued by a 26-year-old former assistant who said in a four-page lawsuit that Cart fired her after she told him she was pregnant.
Cart also allegedly told his assistant, Stacey Melendy, that, "If she wished to keep her job, she should consider having an abortion," according to the lawsuit.
"(Melendy) was so upset that day because of what he said to her, she told a number of employees before she left the company," said Melendy's attorney, Robert Scirocco. "She got in touch with me, and I got in touch with them and they denied that any of it occurred."
Cart's attorneys had not seen the lawsuit yesterday, and did not comment.
Melendy's lawsuit was filed Tuesday, the same day Cart appeared in federal court in Newark and pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzling $284,000 from a union's health fund.
Cart, 56, was indicted Feb. 23 for allegedly conspiring to embezzle funds from Local 16 of the United Service Workers of America in Newton and its health fund. He was charged along with his stepfather, Charles H. Wiener, 68, of New Port Richey, Fla., and Marvin Raphael, 63, of Boca Raton, Fla.,
Prosecutors said Cart fraudulently increased the per-member administrative costs union workers paid to Health Choice, which processed the union's health claims. Instead of going toward the health fund, however, the payments were routed to Wiener and another unnamed Cart family member, according to the indictment.
In Melendy's lawsuit, she and her husband, Niel Melendy, named as defendants Nassau Benefits Consultants, which does business as Health Choice, and Cart.
The suit says Stacey Melendy began working for Cart on March 26, 2001, and took jobs as a claims examiner, acting supervisor, plan document coordinator and eventually worked in sales and marketing and as an executive assistant to the CEO, who is Cart.
On Jan. 27, Melendy gave Cart a letter telling him she was pregnant and expected to deliver in July 2005, the suit says. Melendy also told Cart she would take maternity leave as the due date approached.
On Feb. 9, Cart told Melendy in his office that he was "terminating her employment effective immediately" in light of her pregnancy, but would allow her to remain to the end of that two-week pay period.
The suit asks for compensatory and punitive damages, counsel fees, interest and the cost of the suit.
Amanda Gerut covers Sussex County. She can be reached at agerut@starledger.com or (973) 383- 0516.
