In a statement under oath a Coach employee testifies that Coach CEO Todd Khan and other top Coach executives are friendly with Luis Anzola, who is the subject of a Charge of sexual harassment filed with the EEOC:
3. Top executives at Coach, including CEO Todd Khan, treated Mr. Anzola as a personal friend. When they visited the store, they made a point to seek out Mr. Anzola to chat with him as soon as they entered the store. They appeared friendly and Mr. Anzola told me that they were.
4. Mr. Anzola showed me pictures of himself with people he described as top executives at Coach.
5. Mr. Anzola told me that he had previously held an important position at Coach in Product Development or something similar.
Despite multiple complaints of sexual harassment against him, Anzola has worked at Coach for over three decades. Another witness with personal knowledge testifies that the Manager of Coach’s Flagship told him she was without the power “to do much to discipline him”:
11. Following [the] complaint, [the Manager] conducted an internal investigation by observing Mr. Anzola on the sales floor and speaking to myself and
some of my coworkers.
12. [The Manager] informed me that because Luis had been with Coach for a long time, she would not be able to “do much” to discipline him.
An Amended Charge filed November 12 alleges that:
Anzola is so sure of this protection that when his supervisor instructed him to cease sexually harassing Complainant, or be disciplined, he threatened the supervisor. He said: “The big bosses will not be happy. If they start asking questions I will give them [Complainant’s] name.” In other words, he trusted that senior management would discipline his victim not him. The supervisor reported this threat to Coach Human Resources, without result.
Further evidence that Anzola is protected is that following investigation of one of Complainant’s complaints, a manager told a witness who had corroborated her complaint, there was little she could do to discipline Anzola “because Luis had been with Coach for a long time . . .” When complainant shared her ordeal with a long time Coach employee, she told Complainant that there was little that Coach would do because “Luis . . . is so used to abuse his power over the management, I don’t think [there is a] practical solution in the end . . . I don’t know what it is that Luis holds and keeps him untouchable.”