A one-time mayor of Amityville, Long Island, faces a laundry list of allegations against him, including pressuring employees into consuming drugs and racism, according to a lawsuit.
Republican Peter Imbert, who served as the town’s mayor for 16 years, is the head of RCI Industries, an insurance firm. His conduct while running the company is the basis for the suit, reported the New York Post.
The New York State Division of Human Rights complaint, filed by maintenance worked Ralph Guarino, accuses Imbert of forcing Guarino to carry out menial tasks, including cleaning up after his boss' guinea pigs, dogs, and tending to his marijuana plants, among more allegations.
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Guarino said Imbert “summoned” him to his home daily to “play pool and get stoned,” watch bikini-clad teens swim in the pool, and ordered him to shoot geese on his property.
Guarino also claimed Imbert asked him to “break glass, purchase anti-freeze and cat food so that Imbert could ‘feed it to the stray cats.’”
“For the last 10 years, I’ve constantly been on edge around him, just ready for him to snap,” Guarino told the Post. “For two years, every day, I … did anything he wanted. I fear the guy. He once told me he has ‘No one to answer to but God.’”
According to Guarino’s complaint, Imbert, a registered Republican, also kept a secret room stocked with “illegal weaponry,” including AK-47s and AR-15s. The former mayor also allegedly told Guarino “whites should stay with whites and Blacks should stay with Blacks.”
No other man on Imbert’s payroll, Guarino claimed, was subject to the alleged misconduct and humiliation. If Guarino complained about Imbert’s requests, he said his boss called him a “chicken sh-t” and a “conniver.”
Guarino’s mom, Irene, also works RCI. She too filed a complaint against Imbert for retaliation after she took issue with the alleged treatment of her son.
Both Guarino and his mother still work for RCI. They are seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
