A lawsuit by the former general manager of the Magens Bay Authority who was abruptly fired in March 2023 claims that he became the target of harassment by two board members who didn’t like his “no nonsense” approach, while they allege that he activated listening devices in the park’s offices, allowed an undocumented person to work on the property, and failed to complete assigned tasks on time.
The governing board announced Hubert Brumant’s departure in March 2023 without any explanation. He is now suing the authority for wrongful termination, defamation, breach of duty of good faith and fair dealings, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. He also alleges that board chairperson Barbara Petersen and board member Jason Charles specifically engaged in “tortious interference with contractual relations.”
The authority has denied the allegations in the 13-page complaint, stating in response that Brumant “engaged in unlawful conduct which undermined the integrity of the position he held as the General Manager and placed Defendant MBA in a position of detriment.”
The authority’s “affirmative defenses” do not detail Brumant’s alleged unlawful conduct but say that he “owes damages to the Defendants which exceeds [sic] any damages claimed by [him] in the Complaint.”
Brumant alleges that he had always received positive job reviews — until Petersen became chairperson in November 2021, and until he refused to give Charles a discount on the rental fee for the King of the Wing charity fundraising event that the company Charles works for helps to sponsor each year at Magens Bay.
“Almost immediately after being appointed Chairperson of MBA, Defendant Petersen began making false allegations against Plaintiff to find grounds to terminate him, according to the complaint, which was filed in February.
And when Brumant told the board’s finance chair Cecile de Jongh, via an email copied to Petersen, that “in no uncertain terms” would Charles’ request for a rental fee discount be allowed, “Plaintiff got a phone call from Mr. Charles who was very angry with Plaintiff over the phone,” the suit alleges. “Before Plaintiff could say a word, he hung up the phone. From then on Defendant Charles was antagonistic towards Plaintiff, and voted to remove Plaintiff from his position on false grounds,” it says.
Among the other allegations in the suit are that Petersen ignored his warnings in October and December 2022 that the AAA Taxi concession would be expiring in 2023, yet stated at a board meeting on Feb. 24, 2023, when the matter was on the agenda, that it was the first time she was made aware that the contract needed to be renewed.
Brumant also alleges that the finance committee changed the qualification for his job to include a business degree instead of a science degree after committee chair de Jongh chastised him as “not a good businessperson” when the MBA needed a golf cart and he declined to purchase one from Jeffrey Epstein, as she suggested, because they were in bad condition. Committee member Katina Coulianos objected to the plan, it says.
Matters came to a head at the Feb. 24, 2023, board meeting, when the members voted in executive session to suspend Brumant for four weeks. According to the complaint, Charles told him “one of the grounds for his suspension was that Defendant Petersen had told the Board she had given him five tasks in January 2022, and he only completed one of them.”
Brumant alleges that it was four tasks, and that he completed all within the allotted timeframe, but Petersen did not follow up with him until that June. The work included creating an organizational chart, an organizational plan, a written employee handbook, and an MBA emergency action plan, he said. Additionally, he updated the accounting policies and procedures manual of his own accord, the complaint states.
“At the same Board meeting, Defendant Petersen showed board members a photo on her cellphone of a stack of lounge chairs stored at Smith Bay Park that belong to Cruise Ship Excursions and MBA. She implied that the Plaintiff had allowed the use of the chairs for profit and implied that the employees were continuing to do so,” the complaint states.
“Defendant Petersen knew full well that Plaintiff had learned of the employee using the chairs, that employee had been disciplined, and the problem had been resolved long ago,” it says.
Before Brumant left work that day, he stopped by the office of operations manager MemorieAnne Brown-Callender to offer to certify the payroll the following Monday despite being suspended, since he normally handled that task, according to the complaint. Additionally, he said he signed some checks at Petersen’s request.
“On February 28, 2023, Plaintiff received an email from Defendant Petersen falsely accusing Plaintiff of violating his suspension by approving payroll, even though she had asked him and approved him signing checks during his suspension,” the complaint states.
On March 7, 2023, before he ever returned to work, Brumant received a termination letter that gave no grounds for his firing, the suit alleges. The defendants then made up false reasons for his termination, to block him from receiving unemployment benefits and to manufacture a cause for his termination, it says. (In a separate case, Brumant has filed a Petition for a Writ of Review with the V.I. Superior Court over the Labor Department’s denial of those benefits.)
Among the authority’s allegations were that Brumant allowed an undocumented person to work in place of a lawful employee who was away, and that during his suspension “it was discovered that Plaintiff had caused the surveillance listening device to be installed in the MBA conference room, private offices, and gate house of MBA without permission from the MBA Board of Directors,” according to the complaint.
Brumant alleges that when the substitute employee admitted she did not have permission to work, she was not paid and agreed to donate her time to assist her family member, a part-time cleaning person. Moreover, “Defendants are also aware of numerous other incidents in which people have been allowed to work without giving employment documentation and it has been found out after they worked, they were not documented, and in fact, Defendant Petersen herself has done that,” the complaint states.
As for the listening device, it was in fact “the Board that authorized the installation of the surveillance cameras that came with listening devices in the locations at MBA,” with the audio placed in the off position, according to the complaint. However, “it has been determined that while the company that sold the equipment was doing the maintenance on the system it accidentally enabled the listening system,” it says.
Attorneys for both sides — Lee J. Rohn for Brumant and Marie E. Thomas-Griffith of Elevate Law PLLC for the MBA, Petersen and Charles — have filed a proposed scheduling order with the court, setting an April 15 deadline for initial voluntary disclosures, and calling for factual discovery to be completed by Oct. 15 and mediation by Nov. 15.
