Spin, Publisher Must Pay $110,000 in Harassment Suit

In a mixed verdict in the sexual harassment trial of Spin magazine and its publisher, Bob Guccione Jr., a federal jury Wednesday awarded $110,000 in compensatory damages and back pay to a former Spin employee but declined to assess punitive damages.

After five grueling days of deliberation in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the jury of five men and four women--all middle-aged or older--agreed with plaintiff Staci Bonner that the editorial department of the popular rock ‘n’ roll magazine constituted a hostile work environment during her four years as a research editor and writer there.

However, jurors rejected Bonner’s other major claims of sex discrimination in the way she was promoted and given assignments, plus intentional infliction of emotional distress and working conditions that forced her to resign.

Bonner, 29, had contended that women at Spin were hired and promoted and received plum assignments often based on their personal relationships with the 41-year-old publisher. Guccione had denied Bonner’s charge. His defense was that Bonner was not an especially gifted writer whose assignments suited her talents.

Hillary Richard, Bonner’s attorney, said in an interview Wednesday that while she was “glad that Staci was vindicated, that the jury believed in her and her claims,” she was disappointed that the jury didn’t hit Guccione and the magazine harder.

“I thought punitives were in order here,” Richard said.

Neither Bonner, Guccione nor Guccione’s lawyer, Bettina Plevan, returned calls seeking comment Wednesday. Guccione is the son of Penthouse magazine Publisher Bob Guccione Sr.

The three-week trial contained testimony from myriad witnesses portraying Spin as a place where female employees were sometimes subjected to unwanted touching and locker-room-style comments from male superiors and co-workers.

Bonner said she received a crude proposition from one editor-writer and unwanted back rubs from a senior editor. Other former employees backed up her testimony with similar descriptions.

It was these claims that evidently led to the finding of a hostile work environment, a form of sex harassment under federal and New York state antidiscrimination laws. The jury awarded Bonner $90,000 under that claim, plus $20,000 more in back pay and liquidated damages under the equal-pay act, finding that Bonner was underpaid relative to male workers in similar jobs.

On Monday, the jury told Judge Denise L. Cote that it was deadlocked on the question of damages. She sent the jurors back into deliberations, admonishing them that if the issue could not be resolved, the case would have to be retried.

Richard said she would apply to the court to assess legal fees against Guccione and the magazine’s ownership group, Camouflage Associates, which was also a defendant in the suit.