A Denver oil tycoon is fighting allegations of sexual harassment and assault from four former female employees.
Three women have come forward to accuse 85-year-old Jack Grynberg, a holocaust survivor, of groping and harassing them, with one even claiming he forced her to have intercourse on multiple occasions.
The women, Candice Dee Smith, Maxine Yzaguirre and Roxanne Alvarez, filed a lawsuit in Douglas County, which was acquired by the Denver Post.
After the charges became public a fourth woman, Suzanne Greene, came forward to claim that she experienced the same sort of harassment at the hands of Grynberg when she worked for him 40 years ago.
Three women have come forward to accuse 85-year-old Jack Grynberg, a holocaust survivor, of groping and harassing them, with one even claiming he forced her to have intercourse on multiple occasions
Grynberg is head of Grynberg Petroleum Co, which is run out of Denver, Colorado. The headquarters are pictures
Smith was the first to file harassment charges, and a judge later said that Yzaguirre and Alvarez could join on as plaintiffs.
She worked as Grynberg’s personal assistant, and alleges she was forced to have sex with him multiple times or risk losing her job at Grynberg Petrolum Co.
Smith claims he bought a $600,000 home in Parker and furnished it for her to live in for free with her then-husband and her five children in April 2015.
She says the encounters began after that when Grynberg one day ‘ushered (her) into his office bathroom for sex, telling her it was “time for you to stat repaying me” for the house,’ according to the lawsuit.
The first woman to file accusations against him was Candice Smith, and since then three other women have come forward to say that they experienced similar treatment at his hands
The suit claims sexual contact occurred 35 times that year over a span of several months, until she started coming up with excuses to prevent being alone with him.
But he touched her inappropriately and forced her to touch him on 18 additional occasions, the lawsuit says, between December 2015 and July 2016, until she decided to leave the company.
When she left Grynberg used her for $45,000 in unpaid rent and her eviction. He also accused her of wrongly using credit cards to buy $35,000 in personal vacations and personal luxuries.
Smith moved out in April after Douglas County District Judge Paul King ruled the lease agreement wasn’t valid, the house wasn’t a gift and Grynberg was still the owner.
However, due to the sexual harassment and assault allegations, the claims about misused credit cards remain unsolved. In the ruling about unpaid rent, the judge said Grynberg unfairly used his authority over Smith.
King also allowed the other two women to join Smith as plaintiffs in the case – Maxine Yzaguirre and her sister Roxanne Alvarez.
Both worked for Grynberg and said he repeatedly groped and harassed them.
Yzaguirre said she worked at Grynberg Petroleum as a receptionist for five months in 2016. During the time, she claims he gave her tasks that required she bend over while he stared at her.
Additionally, she claims she went into his office and found him wearing only underwear on at least three separate occasions.
Once, she says he trust at her and asked if she was interested, and another time she pulled away from an attempted kiss only to have him remind her that he’d just given her a bonus.
Alvarez said she worked as a temporary assistant for Grynberg for a brief time.
She said he took her to his home to do tasks while he would stare at her and look down her shirt.
On a separate occasion she claims he ushered her into the men’s locker room at the company’s Denver offices and kissed her and put her hands in her bra. She claims she pulled away and ran upstairs.
And a short while after she says Grynberg told he to come back to his home or she would be fired.
Alvarez said she told Grynberg Petroleum’s vice president Terence Burns of the locker room incident ,and that he told her to stay quiet and not put their jobs at risk.
She claims he told her Grynberg has done things like this before.
Burns has been named a defendant in the lawsuit, along with the company’s attorney Roger Jatco for allegedly knowing about the tycoon’s conduct and not taking action to protect the employees.
Alvarez also reported the locker room incident to police in December 2015. He was arrested and charged with sexual assault, but the charge was eventually dropped because lawyers didn’t think they could prove it to a jury.
One of the women who joined the suit as a plaintiff, Roxanne Alvarez, filed a sexual assault charge against Grynberg in December 2016 that saw him arrested. She claims that he forced her into a locker room and then started kissing her and putting his hands down her shirt. The charges were eventually dropped because lawyers didn’t think they could prove it to a jury
The fourth woman in the case, Suzanne Greene, isn’t a plaintiff. She worked for the company nearly 40 years ago, and wrote about her experiences in a sealed affidavit to add to the lawsuit.
Greene said that she was harassed in 1976 just a few weeks into being hired as Grynberg’s executive secretary.
She said he asked if she would be willing to show an associate coming to town ‘a good time.’
When she said no, she claims he asked if any of her friends would be willing to do it.
Another time she claims Grynberg came to her home to pick up mail, but ended up pinning her to a wall and forcibly kissing her. She claims when she pushed him off of her he said, ‘But you invited me over.’
Greene resigned in 1977, and said she didn’t go to authorities at the time because she didn’t think they would believe her.