[www.chicagotribune.com]- A Chicago divorce attorney who posed nude and wrote a legal advice column for Playboy.com filed suit Monday alleging that an executive of the publishing empire sexually harassed her.
Corri Fetman, [pictured] 45, who wrote the Lawyer of Love column, alleged that Thomas Hagopian, an executive in the digital branch of Playboy Enterprises, bombarded her with sexually explicit e-mails and phone calls, groped her and took away her column last July when she repeatedly rebuffed his advances.
Hagopian could not be reached for comment, but a Playboy spokeswoman, Elizabeth Austin, said Hagopian left the company last year. She would not comment further on his departure.
Fetman’s suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, seeks more than $4.5 million in damages for, among other things, “gender violence” and emotional distress.
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“I’m filing the lawsuit because I believe there may be other victims out there,” Fetman said Monday. “I also do not believe under any circumstances that any woman should be subjected to this type of harassment.”
She referred other questions to her attorney, Timothy Ashe.
Fetman’s name was in the news in 2007 after she and her law partner placed a billboard in the Gold Coast that featured scantily clad men and women and the proclamation: “Life’s Short. Get a Divorce.” The ad, ostensibly pulled because it lacked the proper permits, unleashed a storm of publicity. Fetman was featured in a 2003 Tribune article about female lawyers. In it, she said she started her own firm in 1995 after being sexually harassed by a supervising attorney.
Fetman lost her focus at work, grew depressed and anxious and sought medical care, Ashe said. “Everybody has a breaking point,” he said. “She is not an overly sensitive person.”