Robert De Niro testifies.
On Monday, De Niro, 80, appeared in federal court in New York at the start of a civil trial to settle a lawsuit filed against the actor’s company, Canal Productions, by his former assistant Graham Chase Robinson.
The Oscar winner is expected to testify at the trial on Monday afternoon. The legal battle began when Canal Productions filed a $6 million lawsuit against Robinson in 2019, alleging that she binge-watched Netflix shows while on the job and abused her position to improperly use “her employer’s fund for her personal gain.”
Robinson subsequently sued De Niro and Canal Productions for alleged violations of the New York City Human Rights Act, alleging that De Niro made sexist comments and behavior toward her, assigned her “stereotypically female job duties that were inconsistent with her job title.” and paid her less than a male employee because of gender stereotypes, according to a statement from Sanford Heisler Sharp, the law firm representing Robinson.
Robinson was first hired as De Niro’s assistant at Canal Productions in 2008. She was promoted to vice president of production and finance before leaving the company and also alleges that De Niro’s girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, “falsely accused Robinson of having a crush on De Niro.”
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“De Niro then retaliated following Robinson’s complaint, stripping Robinson of her job duties and forcing her to resign,” in April 2019, the statement claimed.
The civil trial in New York, which is expected to last up to two weeks, is likely to include text messages and emails shared between Chen and De Niro regarding Robinson, according to the statement.
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“Mrs. Robinson is ready to tell her story to a jury,” Brent Hannafan, a partner at Sanford Heisler Sharp, said in a statement Monday. “Her claims of discrimination and retaliation are convincing and the evidence to support them is clear. We believe that when all the testimony is heard, the jury will agree with us that De Niro discriminated against and retaliated against Ms. Robinson.”
In addition to testimony from Robinson and De Niro, the jury could also hear from De Niro’s attorney Tom Harvey, his accountant Michael Tasch, several employees who worked with Robinson at Canal between 2008 and 2019, and Chen, whom De Niro has been dating since 2018. The couple are announced that he had a child together in May – Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, his seventh child.
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When Canal Productions originally filed suit against Robinson in 2019, the company alleged she ran up large tip bills on the company’s American Express card, used De Niro’s frequent flyer miles for personal travel and submitted false information to receive $70,000 in 96 days “unused” annual leave.
The company also alleged that she spent tens of thousands of dollars on personal expenses and spent “astronomical amounts of time” watching television on Netflix instead of working.
The original lawsuit said Robinson was making $300,000 a year when she “abruptly resigned” from the company via email on April 6, 2019.
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