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Budding TV celebrity and former Jean-Georges executive pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by four former employees, according to a report Wednesday by the online news site Mic.
Two pastry chefs and two externs — who were not named and who worked with Iuzzini between 2009 and 2011 — in the report described repeated incidents of misconduct while they worked at Jean-Georges, the high-end restaurant owned by Jean-Georges Vongerichten in New York’s Trump International Hotel.
The kitchen workers said that Iuzzini had a habit of touching female employees inappropriately. They said he also asked female workers to give him shoulder massages at the end of their shifts, made crude jokes and showed one worker a graphic photo.
They also described him as having a violent temper, once throwing an empty liquid nitrogen canister at a female worker.
One extern said she had a sexual relationship with Iuzzini that she didn’t describe as coercive, but that the power dynamic made saying “no” difficult, according to the report. The woman, who was 19 at the time, told Mic, “If one person has all the power, it’s not really consent.”
Iuzzini in a statement published by Mic denied several of the allegations, saying many were inaccurate and others he did not recall, and “none were meant to hurt people.” He denied the suggestion that he might have a drug problem, or that he threw a nitrogen canister...