Sex, Drugs Forced On Women Employees At Exclusive NYC Nightclub: Lawsuit

Editor's note: This story contains references and/or descriptions of sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.

NEW YORK CITY — Bosses at exclusive New York City nightclub The Box had a directive for what a former waitress should do for clients: "ANYthing they wanted."

The ex-bottle server contends in a recently filed federal lawsuit that she was physically, verbal and sexually harassed by a management team who not only allowed "customers to sexually harass and abuse her," but pressured her "to lure male customers to The Box so that they could be sexually serviced by others."

After recruiting male clients to enter the nightclub, women who worked at the club were instructed by management to engage in sex, excessive alcohol consumption and drug use, all under the threat of punishment or termination, the lawsuit states.

“Defendants punished [the worker] when she tried to protect herself from sexual harassment, and told [her] to give male clients 'ANYthing they wanted,'" the lawsuit reads.

The complaint, filed Nov. 21 in New York Southern District Court, names The Box's owner Simon Hammerstein — the grandson of famed American songsmith Oscar Hammerstein II — as well as Chief Operating Officer Javier Vivas, manager Giza Selimi and former manager Nenad Karac as defendants.

Attorneys for all four Box bosses denied the accusations, according to court records. The parties agreed to settle in mid-March for an undisclosed amount of money. The bosses did not respond to a request for comment, nor did their attorneys.

The nightclub, which opened in 2007, is known for its racy cabaret performances and celebrity clientele including Miley Cyrus, Susan Sarandon, Doja Cat, Paris Hilton, Nicki Minaj, Elon Musk and Lindsay Lohan. Taylor Swift even celebrated her 34th birthday at the establishment in December.

The lawsuit is the latest filed against The Box and its management, who came under fire in a spate of previous complaints filed by former employees between March 2020 and 2021, accusing them of everything from illegally pooled tips and deliberately over-serving customers to turning a blind eye to the rampant use of drugs in-house and pressure to take shots of alcohol and cocaine with clientele and Hammerstein.

Less than two years after The Box opened, a pair of burlesque performers employed by The Box took to MySpace to detail a host of charges about the performance space and its ownership.

"The inhumane treatment of the artists and employees at the Box is appalling," the post read, as reported by The New York Times. Addressing one of the many charges from the MySpace grievance list, The Box's ownership told the outlet, "we don’t have a prostitution ring here.”

All the federal lawsuits against The Box have been settled or are in the settlement process, including a minimum wage-related class action for servers, bartenders and bussers who worked at the club from 2015 to 2021, according to court records.

"Is He Going To Rape Me?"

The whistleblowing bottle server began working at The Box about August 2017 when she was 25 years old in order to pay for tuition and living expenses at a nearby city college, according to the lawsuit. She was referred to The Box through an acquaintance of Selimi, who told her she could make large amounts of money if she waitressed at the club.

On her first night at The Box, Karac, the other manager, "looked up and down at [her] face and body in a sexual manner" before saying she didn't need to complete a full interview to get the job, according to the lawsuit.

Within a month of working at The Box, owner Hammerstein called the bottle server "sexy" and led her upstairs to a bathroom shall where the lawsuit contended he brought women to have sex with. Inside the stall, he ordered her to sit on a bench and put her feet on platforms that caused her legs to spread open, per the complaint.

Hammerstein told her to "look up," where she saw a mirror, and the owner told her that the bathroom stall they were in was where he brought women to have sex with because he could see himself in the mirror, the lawsuit states.

"Plaintiff was terrified that she was about to be sexually assaulted or raped and thought 'Oh my god, is he going to rape me?,'" the lawsuit reads.

Hammerstein also gave the waitress a tour of the "private rooms" with velvet curtains where male customers could be serviced with sex acts, according to the complaint.

The woman "was incredibly relieved that the owner of the club had not sexually assaulted her, but she was still shaken up and anxious about what had occurred," the complaint said. "She knew that if she had not complied with ... Hammerstein’s orders, she would have been terminated."

Throughout the two-and-a-half years she worked at The Box, the bottle server said she was exposed to rampant sexual harassment from her bosses, including Karac pressing his penis against her when he walked by and repeatedly propositioning her for sex. At least three women employees reported sexual harassment from manager Karac, she said.

When the bottle server reported the behavior to Vivas, he said, “What do you think I should do with him? These types of accusations can ruin someone's career,” according to the complaint.

The same night, Karac harassed her again by pinning her to a corner and asking her "how she was doing," according to the lawsuit.

One month later, Vivas told the bottle server he had conducted an "investigation" and that nobody corroborated her story. For more than a year following the report, Karac retaliated against the waitress, singling her out for criticism, yelling at her and giving her less lucrative shifts and tables, she said.

"Karac was making her work environment so hostile and unbearable that she would be forced to quit, and Defendant The Box was doing nothing to protect her from him or even limit their interactions," the lawsuit reads.

The complaint also alleged racist comments from Selimi about Black potential customers — who stood outside and waited to gain entry to the exclusive club — that they were "trashy," and "hood," that they “didn’t fit in” and they were “not what he/they wanted."

In one instance, the former waitress' Black female friend was denied entry by Selimi, who reportedly told the waitress "'I don’t want her in my club,' because her 'hair looked crazy' and she 'looked crazy with that hair,'" according to the complaint.

The bottle server was able to leave her job as the COVID-19 pandemic descended on New York City in March 2020 when The Box temporarily closed under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "PAUSE" executive order. Karac parted ways with the club in early 2022, according to LinkedIn.

"Not Like A Normal Club"

Sex, or the promise of it, loomed large for women who worked at The Box, according to the lawsuit.

Owners ordered the bottle server and other employees to dress provocatively and lure men around the city to The Box, the lawsuit states. Employees also used their personal social media accounts to set up "dates" with clients.

At the club, male customers would be "serviced with sexual acts, sexual intercourse, drugs, and excessive alcohol by other women employees who had been forced to perform these acts" while the bottle server was promised 10 percent commission of the male clients' spending at the club per quarter, the lawsuit contends.

But the only time she received commission was when she received $1,797 for bringing in about $54,000 in sales, or roughly a 3.33 percent commission, within a five-month period in 2017, she contended in the lawsuit.

The time spent searching for "clientele" two to three times a week for up to six hours per day was also entirely uncompensated, though she was told she would be taken off the schedule if she did not do so, the lawsuit states.

The bottle server estimates she is owed more than $10,000 in commission.

At least one other former employee of The Box contended in a separate lawsuit that women employees were not paid for mandatory sponsored events, tastings, trainings, meetings or the time spent tracking down the right clothing and makeup for the ever-changing "look" mandated by management in routine emails. The same workers were "punished” if they were unwilling to be put on display at events, either by not being scheduled for shifts, scheduled only for undesirable shifts or being threatened with termination.

In fact, waitresses were neither paid minimum wage required under the law nor overtime when ordered to stay with clients at the club as late as 7 a.m., the lawsuit contends.

The late nights weren't isolated incidents, according to city data. The New York Police Department has responded to reports of loud music at the venue past 6:30 a.m. as recently as November 2023.

"Despite all this, Plaintiff stayed at Defendant The Box, because she desperately needed a job that would help pay for her education and her rent," the complaint reads.

In one instance, when the waitress refused a male client who grabbed her by the waist in a sexual manner during an unpaid training shift, her manager Karac moved her work schedule to less-lucrative weekday shifts and told her she was "too old" and wanted "younger" waitresses on weekends, according to the lawsuit. She was separately told by the same manager that she would not be scheduled another shift if she did not drink with clients, the lawsuit states.

In another instance, Selimi told the bottle server The Box was "not like a normal club," was a "different environment, and that she had "to accept that the male clientele are going to be drunk and touch her and be handsy," the lawsuit states.

It’s not a far cry from the "constant bath of Dionysian debauchery" Hammerstein described to Guest of a Guest in 2008.

"That’s what I'm selling: mystique and mystery and sexual openness," he said of the club at the time.

The bottle server, however, has come away with a different experience, resulting in "serious mental health issues because of the harassing and discriminating experiences at … The Box."

While it's unclear how much The Box is slated to provide the bottle server in the settlement, the former employee demanded over $100,000 in damages, interest and attorneys’ fees in her complaint.

Are you a current or former employee of The Box? Share your story with this reporter via email at nicole.rosenthal@patch.com or Signal at 856-521-1221.