A sleazebag Manhattan lawyer once sued by former client and rap impresario Lil’ Kim is being accused of sexually abusing a 19-year-old beauty for conducting a job interview reminiscent of a Hollywood-style casting couch session, The Post has learned.
Sunny Barkats, the married founding partner of JSBarkats on East 41 Street, ordered Denisse Villalta to lock his office door, strip naked and perform oral sex on him during the Oct. 2014 interview for a receptionist position, according to her lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court.
The attorney also demanded that Villalta have a threesome with his wife and promised to make her a paralegal with higher pay a few months later – but only if she was “obedient,” said her lawyers at Borrelli & Associates.
Villalta, now 21, reluctantly took the $30,000 a year full-time gig because she was in debt from her college tuition and needed health care coverage, the suit says.
The next day, Barkats allegedly invited Villalta into his office, muted a phone call with a client and ordered her to perform oral sex on him before choking her during intercourse.
“If I catch you with someone else, I will kill you. You belong to me,” Barkats warned, according to the papers.
Villalta made up an excuse to get out of there, saying that she had a doctor’s appointment, the suit says.
She never returned to work.
An angry Barkats sent her a threatening text message with a photo, showing him wielding a steak knife.
In 2013, Lil’ Kim, whose real name is Kimberly Denise Jones, filed a $1 million suit against Barkatz, claiming that he swindled her out of “valuable trademark and branding rights” related to liquor, makeup, and fashion endorsements.
Villalta is suing for an unspecified amount of money for emotional distress.
Barkats did not immediately return a call for comment.