Dalbar Faces Sexual Harassment Charges

A former employee of Dalbar, a mutual fund consulting and research firm based in Boston, has filed a complaint against the firm, its CEO and four of its officers, charging sexual harassment.

The complaint was filed on behalf of Mary Mayo in early January in Massachusetts Superior Court.

According to the complaint, Louis Harvey, CEO of Dalbar, repeatedly touched Mayo inappropriately, conducted performance reviews with her over dinner, off company property and invited Mayo to his home without her husband.

The complaint states that company managers Robert Powell III, Kathleen Whalen and Csilla Von Csiky, were aware of Harvey's behavior toward Mayo and did nothing to stop it. The complaint also claims Mayo was fired Nov. 5, 1999 after her attorney, Lenny Kesten, informed Robert Bonin, a lawyer for Dalbar, on Nov. 2 that Mayo was going to file a sexual harassment complaint.

The complaint also alleges that Powell, Whalen and Von Csiky defamed Mayo's character by barring her from Dalbar's offices in the Federal Reserve Bank building and, "by suggesting to the Federal Reserve Bank that the plaintiff was of such poor character that she should be barred from the building."

Harvey denied all charges in the complaint, according to Bonin. Mayo was fired because of poor performance and had been placed on probation Oct. 8, 1999 with eight other employees, Bonin said. Mayo never complained to Powell, Whalen or Von Csiky about Harvey's behavior toward her and were therefore unaware of any harassment, he said. Whalen also denied the allegations. Others named did not immediately return calls.

Dalbar is the former publisher of this newsletter. The newsletter was sold to Securities Data Publishing, a division of Thomson Financial, in the spring of 1998.

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