You might remember that earlier this autumn, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon found himself the target of a discrimination suit filed by former Citi Field sales executive Leigh Castergine, who claimed the genetic lottery winner was canned after a series of in-house accolades soley because she was pregnant out of wedlock. On Friday, Wilpon — in court papers obtained by the New York Post’s Rich Calder — claimed he’d been mischaracterized :
Jeffrey I. Kohn, a lawyer for the thrifty team’s chief operating officer, said Wilpon has always shown “ long-standing support” for ex-Mets executive Leigh Castergine and that she was fired in August from her post heading ticket sales strictly because of workplace “issues and conflicts” with her immediate supervisors who didn’t include Wilpon.
“The termination of her employment was based on legitimate business reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with her gender, marital status, pregnancy or leave,” wrote Kohn, refuting allegations Castergine raised last month in a blockbuster Brooklyn federal court suit, including that Wilpon was “morally opposed” to her being pregnant and unmarried.
The suit claims that the son of Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon warned Castergine’s co-workers to refrain from taking any interest in her unborn child and even stated “in a meeting of the team’s all-male senior executives that he is ‘morally opposed’ to Castergine ‘having this baby without being married.’”