A choose has ordered New York channel WPIX/Channel 11 to pay greater than $2 million to a former anchor after a authorized battle.
Ojinika “Oji” Obiekwe labored for the corporate operated by Nexstar for 22 years and claimed the station fired her in 2023 as a result of she spoke out towards allegations of racial discrimination within the newsroom.
On Tuesday, a choose dominated in his favor after a weeklong trial and ordered the broadcasting firm to pay him $1,137,000 for “compensatory damages for ache, struggling or emotional misery” and $1,280,000 in punitive damages, in keeping with court docket paperwork obtained by Web page Six.
“I really feel nice! I am grateful to God…I thank God for main me to my legal professionals as a result of I may by no means have completed this with out them,” Obiekwe advised us.
“They believed in me. They believed my story. They knew I wasn’t mendacity. They only trusted me after which guided me and right here we’re: victory,” she added, adopted by a cacophonous chortle that screamed “Vindication!”
In a lawsuit she filed final yr, Obiekwe claimed that after being promoted to leisure presenter in 2017, she discovered herself “having to do the work of two, even three staff, in addition to the work of a phase producer and even that of an editor.”
She in contrast her workload to “slavery” and “plantation work.” “All I’ve left to do at this level is choose the cotton,” she typically mentioned at work, in keeping with the lawsuit, which additionally claimed that her white male counterparts at sister stations did much less work with extra assets.
She claimed she was fired for complaining.
WPIX-TV vehemently denied her claims and retaliated by accusing Obiekwe of utilizing a “meritless lawsuit to overturn the results of her personal poor efficiency whereas working at WPIX.”
After their victory, Obiekwe’s lawyer, Eric Abrams of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, referred to as “these sorts of circumstances” “extremely tough.”
“The truth that we gained, and the truth that we gained huge is a big testomony to who Oji is…The jury understood that her facet of the story was the correct a part of the story, whereas PIX and Nexstar by no means did…Nobody deserves vindication greater than her,” Abrams mentioned.
Obiekwe advised us she was overwhelmed by the help she obtained, together with from former WPIX colleagues. She added that her victory is not only for her, however “for each single particular person I noticed being wronged at PIX11,” she mentioned.
Former WPIX reporter Narmeen Choudhury, who says she left the station after experiencing Islamophobia, shared Obiekwe’s pleasure on social media. “It is a nice victory for [Obiekwe] however I can’t assist however really feel that this can be a collective victory for thus many others harmed by the mismanagement of this newsroom,” she wrote.
Obiekwe concluded: “You may’t hearth folks as a result of they converse out towards discrimination. You may’t hearth folks since you don’t love them…I am not right here to be preferred. I used to be there to do a job…I did my job.”
A consultant for WPIX had no remark.