NEW YORK — The late and legendary music executive Ahmet Ertegun was accused of sexually abusing a female executive, with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee charged in a Manhattan lawsuit with molesting the plaintiff during a helicopter ride and openly masturbating in front of her.
“I have lived with this trauma since I first experienced it at Atlantic Records,” victim Dorothy Carvello told the Daily News after filing suit. “I reported it to my direct supervisors, followed the protocols, and I was gone. The emotions were unbelievable — shock, sadness, depression.
“It only got worse. I was made to feel ashamed ... it affected me so much.”
The filing was made under the state’s Adult Survivors Act and its one-year window for abuse survivors to take legal action, with two more record industry executives named along with the Ertegun estate and the Warner Music Group.
“Mr. Ertegun engaged in forcible sexual conduct toward Ms. Carvello on multiple occasions in work-related settings and in the presence of others,” her lawsuit alleged.
Carvello, of Brooklyn, was only 24 when she started working for Ertegun, who died in 2006 after an unprecedented career where he signed hit-making artists including Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills Nash & Young.
She quickly worked her way up from secretary to become the company’s first female A&R executive after arriving in April 1987, working alongside Ertegun.
“This was the greatest talent finder of all time,” recalled Carvello. “I thought, ‘What an experience for me.’ I became the first female executive. It was a dream, and it turned into my worst nightmare.”
The lawsuit described in detail the abuse allegedly inflicted by Ertegun, including a charge that he masturbated at work while dictating correspondence to Carvello. In another incident, the music mogul attacked her during a Pennsylvania concert by the band Skid Row and on a helicopter ride home from the show.
“Mr. Ertegun grabbed and squeezed Ms. Carvello’s breasts, clawed at the bike shorts she was wearing under her skirt, and pulled them down to access her underwear,” court papers said. “(He) violently attempted to remove her underwear, bruised her, and exposed her vagina to all.”
In another incident, the music mogul fractured Carvello’s arm by slamming it down on a table, according to court papers.
“The trauma and the abuse, physical and mental, are something I still live with on a daily basis,” said Carvello, who had previously leveled abuse charges against her boss in the book “Anything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music Industry.”
A second and similar lawsuit was filed last week by former music manager Jan Roeg, who accused Ertegun of attempting to force her into performing oral sex in addition to groping her and masturbating in front of her.
A Tuesday email to Warner Music Group for comment was not returned.
“It was a constant thing, all day, it never ended,” recalled Carvello. “It was a toxic and and hostile work environment and I needed this job. It was my chance to move up in the world.”
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