Linette Cinelli shows her obvious assets while explaining that $1.75 million is not enough.

Linette Cinelli has refused a settlement of $1.75 million in her claim that she was sexually harassed while working at a stock brokerage firm.

Linette Cinelli, one of the three plaintiffs in the private lawsuit, said that she hoped the settlement would help the women who remained at the firm. She and the other two plaintiffs in her lawsuit will not share in the federal settlement because they have chosen to pursue their case privately.

The brokerage house has agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle a government lawsuit in which top managers were accused of sexually harassing female workers.

In the case, Martens, et al, v. Smith Barney, et al, the lead plaintiff is Pamela Martens, who charges that her former branch manager in Smith Barney's Garden City, N.Y., office had a history of discriminating against, and making sexually inappropriate remarks to, women employees. According to Martens' complaint, the branch manager referred to women in vulgar terms and used sexually offensive language.

Martens charges that the manager once led around the office a woman sales assistant wearing culottes. Stopping at each male broker's desk, he ordered the woman to spread her legs, so the men could vote on whether the culottes violated the dress code for women in the office.

Martens also said the manager constructed a "Boom Boom Room" in the basement of the office. The room was allegedly decorated fraternity house style, complete with a toilet bowl hanging from the ceiling and an oversized trash can used to serve Bloody Marys to male brokers. The manager is accused of saying that sexual harassment complaints would be "deliberated" in the "Boom Boom Room".


UPDATE: The court has rejected the $1.75 million settlement. The case will return to negotiations and will likely go to trial.

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