- Avenue Capital founder Marc Lasry is suing his former employee Gina Strum in New York state court.
- The lawsuit alleges that Strum was demanding $50 million from Lasry or she threatened to make things “really, really, ugly.”
- Strum’s lawyer calls the lawsuit ‘blatantly fabricated and retaliatory.’
Billionaire Avenue Capital founder Marc Lasry typically spends this part of the year focused on his firm’s annual investor conference, which will be held Thursday.
But this year, Lasry’s attention has been partially consumed by a long-simmering dispute between his firm and a former employee, which has become public courtesy of a lawsuit Lasry, his firm, and his sister and cofounder Sonia Gardner filed Friday in New York state court.
In the suit, Lasry, the former owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and a longtime Democratic megadonor, alleges that his former employee, Gina Strum, was trying to extort him for $50 million. Strum, who has previously received a severance package from the firm as well as a $750,000 consulting contract, promised to make things “really, really, ugly” for Lasry and Avenue if she didn’t receive the eight-figure payout.
Avenue said in the lawsuit that Strum, who worked for Avenue from 2009 to 2013, threatened to sue Lasry, spread false rumors about Lasry’s sister’s health to third-party consultants with connections to Avenue, and admitted to being “crazy” with her communications to the billionaire.
“Ms. Strum, a former Avenue employee who departed the firm in 2013, has repeatedly threatened to smear the reputations of Mr. Lasry, Avenue, and Ms. Gardner, with the stated and malicious intent to destroy their business. This lawsuit aims to bring that to an end,” a statement from an Avenue spokesperson reads.
Strum’s attorney, Daniel Kaiser, told Bloomberg that the lawsuit is “blatantly fabricated and retaliatory, a continuation of his attempt to control and harass Ms. Strum.” Kaiser and Strum did not immediately return requests for comment.
Business Insider reviewed the 22-page filing and identified the most dramatic allegations:
1. Strum’s messages to Lasry over the years “often inappropriately veered towards the personal, obsessive, and simply inappropriate,” according to the lawsuit.
Lasry’s suit states that Strum sent a selfie after a haircut wearing a “tight, low-cut tank top” and pictures of her chest in a tight shirt as she modeled new necklaces she bought for an upcoming party. The suit states that Lasry rebuffed Strum’s advances, but that did not stop the flow of texts.
Examples include messages such as:
- “Did you forget about me? My life doesn’t really work without you. Stop punishing me.”
- “You are a lovebug to me.”
- “I love you. I’m going to try to hold in the crazy.”
- “Black and navy are your colors. I remember the first time I met you . . . You were in a black turtleneck. I started sweating.”
- “def lonely and flirting with you. I hope you are ok with that.”
2. Strum spread rumors about Gardner’s health
Gardner had a small tumor removed from her lung in May 2022, according to the lawsuit. The operation was successful, and no additional treatment was needed, the suit states, but Strum used the procedure to “blackmail” Avenue.
“Ms. Strum wrongly asserted that Ms. Gardner’s 2022 surgery should have been disclosed to Avenue’s investors, because according to Ms. Strum, Ms. Gardner was in poor health and had not been working for the last two years,” the suit reads.
Gardner, the suit states, returned to Avenue within weeks of her 2022 operation.
“Ms. Strum vindictively provided these blatantly false statements about Ms. Gardner to third parties after she was again explicitly told by Mr. Lasry that ‘She’s fine.'”
3. Strum was able to get several payouts from Avenue over the past decade
While Strum’s demand for $50 million did not work out, she was paid several times by Avenue to “mollify” her.
When she left the firm in 2013, the lawsuit states that she was given “a severance package after she threatened to make false accusations about Avenue, and Avenue determined it was in its best interest to pay Ms. Strum — and agree to work with her in the future as a consultant if she could not find gainful employment — rather than face undue fallout from a public report of false accusations.”
The lawsuit declines to say how much the package was, but Strum was later given $750,000 over two years as a part of a consulting arrangement.
What pushed Strum to ask for $50 million and threaten to “spread false and defamatory stories to destroy Mr. Lasry and Avenue and file a lawsuit” was the rejection of a business proposal Strum brought to the firm in 2023 which coincided with the last payout of the $750,000 arrangement.
“When Ms. Strum received the attention and the money she sought, she routinely complimented Plaintiffs,” the suit states.
But when she “did not get her way — or when she thought she was not getting sufficient attention to advance as she had hoped — she became erratic and abusive.”
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