Pao’s affair with Ajit Nazre under the scanner.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The high-profile gender discrimination case against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers reached a critical juncture when plaintiff Ellen Pao took the stand to testify against the venture capital firm that formerly employed her as a junior partner.
Pao, 45, is currently suing her former employer for $16 million in backpay and future wage losses. She alleges she was denied merited promotions because of her gender and that a colleague with whom she had a brief relationship harassed her for several years afterward.
Pao claims she spoke with multiple superiors about the problems she was having with Ajit Nazre — whom she accuses of attempting to sabotage her career after she broke off a months-long affair — but there were no rules in place for dealing with situation. She alleges the company then repeatedly ignored her complaints and requests for more concrete HR protocols.
Pao previously testified that Ray Lane, a managing partner, coerced her into having lunch with Nazre to help them move past the conflict. During that lunch, Pao recounted, Nazre accosted her, telling her he loved her and then following her to the parking lot, which Pao noted as an uncomfortably jarring series of events.
However, Lynne Hermle, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ defense lawyer, presented an email that showed Pao had asked Nazre out to the infamous lunch, and also displayed emails from later in the day, after the lunch, in which Pao used warm and friendly language.
“You really are amazing at what you do and you shouldn’t let anyone take that away from you. You’re the only person in the office … who gives me consistent, productive feedback,” Pao wrote, per Wired Magazine.
The New York Times reports Hermle’s cross-examination of Pao was “lengthy, patient and relentless” in its effort to undermine Pao’s case. It called her “cold, territorial, untrustworthy, entitled, and either passive-aggressive to colleagues or maybe just aggressive — the sort of person who an office that depends on relationships would be crazy to promote to a senior role.”
Aside from the tangled web of accusations and entendres that have laid the foundation for the case — which has lasted 12 days so far — it is further complicated by Pao’s finances, which are currently anything but resolute.
Pao’s husband, Alphonse Fletcher Jr., whom she met, married and had a child with during the years being reviewed by the trial, is a Wall Street financier who not only stands accused of fraud but also has no money left in his completely bankrupt hedge fund.
The judge in the case, Harold Kahn, has refused to allow discussion of Pao’s financial motives in filing suit, but Hermle asked on Wednesday that he reconsider. Kahn is slated to make a decision regarding the matter today.