A Westchester country club says the attorney it hired to handle disputes with staff instead sided with a rogue bartender who harassed club members — all to curry favor with the worker’s union over a side deal.
The Westchester Golf Club in White Plains hired Peter Panken of the Manhattan firm Epstein, Becker & Green to represent its members in disputes with employees.
But the Harvard Law grad repeatedly urged leniency with the problem bartender because he also deals with the bartender’s union in a separate business dealing where he reps a federation of 23 other country clubs, according to a new Manhattan civil suit filed by the Westchester club.
The club says barkeep Timothy Cremin’s “conduct and performance were abhorrent for years.”
In 2009, Cremin allegedly shoved a manager, the suit says. Then in 2011, he insulted a club member of Italian descent who tried to order white wine by suggesting he order “Guinea Red” instead, according to the filing.
Cremin, 77, denied the claims.
“”I never shoved anyone or used any of those derogatory terms,” he told The Post.
The suit says Panken “inexplicably” told the club Cremin deserved “another chance,” the suit says.
When the club finally tried to fire Cremin, a union shop steward, in 2013 after he was rude to more members at a funeral service, Panken chose an “unabashedly pro-union” arbitrator who ordered Cremin to be reinstated with back pay, the suit says.
The club is now saying Panken “threw the arbitration hearing to gain political points for when he negotiated a future contract with the union” on behalf of the federation of clubs. The suit seeks unspecified damages for legal malpractice.
A spokeswoman for Panken said “the lawsuit has no merit.”
Cremin also discredited the suit.
“I don’t think Panken threw the case,” he said. “He lost the case because I had a better lawyer. It’s simple as that,” Cremin said.
Additional reporting by Frank Rosario