A nursing assistant working at an assisted-living facility in the New York City suburbs claims her colleagues simply could not believe her ample derrière was all-natural, for months demanding the name of the physician who gave her the supposed implants and making her life a living hell when she didn’t share it.
Milouse Laguerre told her co-workers at Andrus on Hudson, a Westchester County nursing home, “that it is not true, that she did not have a fake ass, and that it was all hers,” according to a lawsuit obtained by The Daily Beast. But her repeated “denials and protestations to the contrary would neither convince nor assuage them.”
Laguerre insisted, again and again, that she wasn’t hiding anything, the lawsuit states. But, it goes on, the others became enraged with her “for not disclosing to them the non-existent doctor/s who did [Laguerre’s] butt implant and the work environment was poisoned that day and continued to be poisoned by [Laguerre’s] refusal to provide them with the referral for the doctors who allegedly did her surgeries.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Anthony Ofodile, Laguerre’s attorney, told The Daily Beast that Laguerre became depressed over the abuse, and “there were times she didn’t want to go to work, she just couldn’t take it and called out sick.” After she complained to management, Laguerre was suspended, then fired, Ofodile said.
Meanwhile, Laguerre’s alleged harassers remain on the job, having suffered no repercussions whatsoever.
“There was no type of punishment, anything at all,” Ofodile said on Tuesday. “They are all still working there.”
Andrus officials declined to comment on pending litigation.
Laguerre’s troubles started almost immediately after she took a job in July 2019 as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Andrus in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, according to the lawsuit. It says four other CNAs right away began denigrating her for being Haitian, calling Haitians “ugly” and telling Laguerre that “they did not believe that [she] is Haitian based on her shape.”
That fall, another one of the CNAs asked Laguerre “if she knew a doctor that did butt implants and that she heard that they did that well in [the Dominican Republic],” the lawsuit alleges. Laguerre responded “that she did not know any doctor that did butt implants,” it states.
According to the suit, the other CNA—who the suit describes as having “large flat buttocks”—proceeded to fix her eyes on Laguerre’s rear end, and asked, “So you mean all that is… you?... God loves you all that much to give you these?”
Laguerre responded, “God loves me all that much,” the suit says.
The CNA quickly told another nursing assistant walking by that Laguerre “stated that the ass [was] hers and that [it was] not fake,” according to the lawsuit. The second CNA “then said that it was not true and cannot be and that [Laguerre] has a big butt and that it is fake and that she has not seen someone with that ass before.”
As Laguerre continued to protest, things soon devolved into a public debate, with “all the nurses and CNAs gathered at the Rotunda questioning [her], insisting that she should tell them where she got her fake buttocks,” the lawsuit continues. The others pushed Laguerre for a referral to her surgeon, but her denials fell upon deaf ears, the suit says. Laguerre told them she has been in the U.S. “since 2010 and had not gone on any trip to do butt implants nor knew any doctor who did one,” according to the suit.
“Milouse, you want to tell me that that is not fake? Nobody will believe that!” one of the gathered nurses exclaimed, the lawsuit states.
It says Laguerre responded that they were free to believe whatever they wanted, and walked away.
“After this date, [Laguerre’s] work environment was unbearable and her work became hell,” the lawsuit says. “[Laguerre] was continuously and relentlessly called ‘fake ass’ any time she was walking by, and they would say something to [Laguerre] or each other and laugh at [her].”
While continuing to harangue Laguerre for a doctor’s referral, the others eventually called into question the authenticity of her breasts, and contended that Laguerre’s belly was “too flat [for] someone who has given birth.”
Finally, Laguerre complained to management. But, the lawsuit contends, “because these were long term employees and [Laguerre’s] English was not very good, it was as if she had no voice.”
Laguerre was subsequently suspended on “trumped up charges, and when she came back from suspension, the harassment and retaliation did not stop,” the lawsuit states. After two more complaints, management “decided that ending her employment was a better business decision than having to discipline its long term employees… for subjecting [Laguerre] to a hostile work environment and discrimination.” Laguerre was fired on April 10, 2020, less than a year after she started.
Laguerre, who sought mental health counseling in the aftermath, has since taken another job, according to Ofodile.
“When we talk about it, emotions come back,” he told The Daily Beast, “but generally she’s feeling better, because she’s not dealing with this anymore.”
Laguerre is demanding general and compensatory damages for emotional, mental, and physical distress, lost earnings and lost opportunities to earn income, as well as punitive damages “in an amount sufficient to punish the defendants and deter others like them from repeating such unlawful conduct,” plus attorney’s fees and past and future costs of medical treatment.
Ofodile said on Tuesday that he will be requesting a jury trial. Andrus has not yet filed an answer to Laguerre’s lawsuit.
