Via TMZ:
Nicky Diaz Santillan, Whitman’s housekeeper of 9 years, held a news conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, and claims Whitman had all the clues she was an undocumented worker but closed her eyes to it because she was cheap help … $23 an hour. [...]
Allred claims when the housekeeper was hired 9 years ago through an agency, Whitman never asked if she was in the U.S. legally. And, during her employment, Santillan told Whitman she couldn’t travel to Mexico. And, Allred said, Whitman found out Santillan’s Social Security number didn’t match her name, but Whitman did nothing.
The livestream was from TMZ.com. Liveblogging, some paraphrasing:
Nicky, the housekeeper:
She said she doesn’t wish eMeg any harm.
On June 24, 2009, eMeg said she couldn’t “do anything for you, I cannot help you… You don’t know me, I don’t know you. You haven’t seen me, I haven’t seen you. Do you understand me?” She asked for help again. “No, and you don’t know me, and I have never seen you.”
After 9 years, “I realized she didn’t appreciate my work… threw me away like a piece of garbage… as if I was not a human being. I’m doing this because I know there are a lot of Megs out there who are mistreating the (unintelligible) who work for hard for them.”
Gloria Allred is up now:
If Ms. Whitman would like to deny our allegations, we’ll give her a document in support of our allegations…
Re: timing:
She just contacted me. Just recently contacted me. …
In my book, also gave “very harsh criticism of Jerry Brown from some years ago… I’m an advocate for individuals if [they have] merit…
If Ms. Whitman would like to respond to the specifics…
Last night [in the debate] she said, “We have to hold employers accountable”…
He said she said?
“If Ms. Whitman would like to deny specifics about what she knew and when she knew it, and release a doc. that confirms what she knows…. We’ll see what she has to say.”
“Certainly, I’ve criticized Democrats in the past… It’s about her hypocrisy, about her treatment of Nicky…”
“She worked more than 15 hours a week on the average…”
“I provided 6 pages of specifics…”
Since June 2009… Subsequent impact?
“She’s not employed at this time….Came to me through an attorney referral… she’s very, very courageous.”
“If Ms. Whitman would like to dispute our claims, she should be prepared with some release of some evidence.”
“I have not contacted the Whitman people. She’s not my client. I did notice a degree of sensitivity this morning when they heard about this… There was name-calling about me…. It’s so powerful that they had to come right out of the box with attacks on me… When that happens, I’ve won the argument…”
Your client gave a false Social Security number…
“Your characterizing what I said.”
Immigration lawyer is up now:
No comment on immigration status. Will pursue. “This is her home.”
Allred:
This is Nicky’s decision… she had very, very, very carefully considered all the risks… Been informed of all of the risks… She’s providing other Nickys with a voice.
Why stay for 9 years if she was overworked, underpaid?
Not all of us have the skills, luxury to find other work….
Whitman’s camp says they have docs to prove otherwise.
If we see a denial of Meg/husband having received info from Soc. Security Admin. involving a mismatch on the form she and husband receive, ask her did she receive that, or fail to do? And how many times did she receive that from the govt.?
Meg’s response? That Nicky lied when she was hired:
“Nicky has falsified the hiring documents and personal information she provided to the employment agency that brought her to us in 2000.”
My earlier post about this is here.
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