Chartiers woman sues ex-partner who disseminated nude video to hundreds of co-workers
A Chartiers Township woman is suing her ex-partner and the company where they both worked after he secretly recorded a nude video of her and then transmitted it and several photographs to nearly 1,000 other employees during a video conference meeting two years ago.
The federal lawsuit filed Oct. 3 in Pittsburgh details how the woman’s longtime romantic partner, Michael Grisetti, used his cellphone to record her without her knowledge in an apparent scheme to later humiliate her after they had broken up.
Some time in 2021 or 2022, Grisetti video recorded the woman as she was exiting the shower in their bathroom inside the Chartiers Township home they shared. The woman and Grisetti were “partners in a long-term romantic, intimate and domestic relationship” raising two children together, according to the lawsuit, but their relationship ended in May 2022 and Grisetti moved out of the house.
Both worked at Crown Castle USA Inc. before and after the break-up, and on Oct. 25, 2022, Grisetti broadcast the lurid video of his ex-partner to “a large number” of her co-workers at their Southpointe office during a video conferencing meeting he was overseeing. More than 900 Crown Castle employees in offices across the country also attended the video conference and saw the video, according to the lawsuit. Grisetti, 51, later emailed the video and three screenshots to 1,371 employees at the company using a “dummy” work email.
While one employee forwarded the email to local law enforcement and the company apparently cooperated with investigators, numerous other employees are accused of sending the photographs to other people, the lawsuit alleges. It’s unknown how many employees still have access to the video and photographs, prompting the lawsuit to ask for communications records in an attempt to identify them.
“(Grisetti) intended to harass, annoy, alarm, embarrass, traumatize, victimize and otherwise humiliate (the plaintiff) via the live broadcast and the mass e-mail dissemination,” the lawsuit states. “(Grisetti’s) acts of perpetrating the live broadcast and the mass e-mail dissemination to (the plaintiff’s) co-workers caused SB to suffer extreme embarrassment, physical distress and emotional distress.”
The embarrassment of the episode forced the woman to leave the company and industry after working there for 19 years. The woman’s name is included in court filings, but the Observer-Reporter is declining to publicly identify her due to the circumstances of the case. Her attorney who filed the lawsuit, Jeffrey Wertz, could not be reached for comment Monday to discuss details of the case.
“The past and future harm to (the plaintiff) caused by the mass dissemination of nude images of her cannot be fully quantified at this time and simply cannot be underestimated,” the lawsuit states. “Harm to an individual in (the plaintiff’s) position by the mass dissemination is obvious to any thinking person; the unauthorized dissemination of explicit or sexual images results in stigmatization of the victim socially and professionally and can result in alienation of the victim from family and friends.”
Online court documents show Chartiers Township police charged Grisetti in April 2023 with unlawful dissemination of an intimate image. He pleaded guilty Jan. 16 to two misdemeanor counts and was sentenced to two years on probation. He also was ordered to pay $1,223 in restitution to his ex-partner and an additional $3,179 in fines and court costs.
Crown Castle, which is based in Houston, Texas, and has an office in the Southpointe business park in Cecil Township, is also named as a defendant, along with a hundred unidentified “John Doe” employees accused of keeping or forwarding the video and images. The lawsuit argues that the case should be handled in federal court because it involved interstate commerce since employees in offices in at least five states attended the video conferencing session or received the emails.
A Crown Castle spokeswoman declined to comment Monday, and it was unclear whether Grisetti had hired an attorney to defend him in the federal lawsuit.
The lawsuit states the woman is seeking financial damages for the incident.