Embattled Zulu club takes another legal hit

Already reeling from a lawsuit filed earlier this summer by a former female employee that accuses former president and King-elect Naaman Stewart of sexual harassment, the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club took another hit Wednesday when the same plaintiff filed a second lawsuit accusing Zulu members of harassment intimidation and attempting to bribe her to remain silent about the alleged 2015 incident.

The historically Black Carnival organization announced last month that it would conduct its own investigation and suspended Stewart indefinitely after The New Orleans Advocate and WWL News released audio recordings of a man believed to be Stewart seeking to force his way into a Zulu club restroom and repeatedly asking a female employee to allow him to see her body parts. At one point during the audio recording, the man threatens to lock the woman in the restroom if she doesn’t comply with his request.

STEWART

FOX 8 News reported last week that Zulu’s membership has voted to replace King-elect Naaman Stewart with George Rainey, who reportedly was only six votes shy of becoming Zulu King when club members selected a new king over the Memorial Day Weekend.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, the plaintiff, who was fired after the bathroom incident, accuses the organization of being complicit in the sexual harassment case.

She accused Zulu members of showing up at her job wearing T-shirts that read “Naaman Stewart for Zulu president” and trying to dissuade her from talking to authorities about the incident. She also alleges that she was offered as much as $15,000 to remain quiet about the incident.

In the four-page document filed in Orleans Civil Court Wednesday, former Zulu employee Gemell Hulbert alleges other Zulu members were complicit in attempts to intimidate her into not talking about the 2015 bathroom incident where she says Stewart refused to let her leave until she showed her breasts and had sex with him.

The court filing names Zulu member Danatus King as a defendant, specifically for his comments made to the media.

It says, “Mr. King’s comments were reckless, insensitive and part of a continuing conspiracy to intentionally portray false information by Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Inc. and to conceal the truth.”

The lawsuit also alleges that attorney Kenya Rounds, a registered agent for the social club, patronized Hulbert’s workplace, and “approached plaintiff in attempt to intimidate her to refrain from contacting the police.”

The woman claims that another Zulu member offered her $10,000 and then $15,000 on behalf of Stewart to, “refrain from reporting his conduct against her to the police department.”

Stewart, who sought unsuccessfully to have the lawsuit thrown out, was expected to make a court appearance Friday.

This article originally published in the August 13, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.