Law Firm Man Sends Employee Illustrated, Laminated Erotic Poems

By Aditi Mukherji, JD on July 24, 2013 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

A mailroom supervisor at the Manhattan law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft with a penchant for erotic poems was slapped with a sexual-harassment lawsuit.

Tyrone Turner allegedly sent laminated, illustrated erotic poems to one of his female employees, Natalie Thorpe, with lines like, "I enjoy you so. Your thick legs and all of the voluptuous plumpness that accents your womanhood."

He balked at Thorpe's allegations, calling them "very frivolous." (Not just frivolous, very frivolous.)

Turner claims he's just a misunderstood minstrel.

The former mailroom supervisor explained that he's an avid poetry slam aficionado and distributed his writing to many co-workers, reports The New York Post. According to Thorpe, 31, who is suing Williams Lea, the outsourcing company that sent her to Cadwalader, Turner not only sent her the erotic poetry ("I love the way you giggle and the way your body jerks when I trace your tattoos with my tongue and rub you down with warm body oil"), but also tried to "kiss and hug her, locked her in his office and asked her to have sex with him on the vacant 35th floor," writes The Post.

Especially creepy, the poem was laminated and decorated with a picture of a man kissing a woman who resembles Thorpe, court documents say.

When Thorpe, who is married, rebuffed his advances, she says she experienced workplace retaliation. Specifically, she received negative performance reviews and had to leave the company. Turner, who is also married, says he voluntarily left the company and received a severance package. Thorpe is suing Williams Lea for failing to investigate or discipline Turner after she reported the incidents and refusing to scrub the negative reviews from her file.

Let this be a reminder to you to keep your NSFW literary masterpieces at home -- especially poems that conclude with, "I'm at your erotic disposal."

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