Current and former employees of Robert De Niro’s production company detailed in Manhattan court Wednesday his former assistant-turned-provocateur’s reign of terror — which they said included underpaying underlings, taking credit for others’ work and forcing one person to take an overnight Uber through a snowstorm to get back to the office.
The accusations — lobbed from the witness stand by Sabrina Weeks-Brittan, a manager for Canal and TriBeCa Productions; and Michael Kaplan, a former Canal Productions employee — were the latest salvo in the lengthy legal fight between the 80-year-old “Taxi Driver” actor and ex-staffer Graham Chase Robinson, who has accused him of being a nightmare boss.
But that’s exactly how the witnesses described Robinson herself in Manhattan federal court.
“I knew I hated working for her,” Weeks-Brittan testified, adding that she was “unbelievably happy” when Robinson finally resigned in April 2019.
Weeks-Brittan said that Robinson had hired her for $20,000 less than she’d been making at her previous job.
Once she was on board, Robinson regularly took credit for her work, Weeks-Brittan claimed.
She also described a 2018 incident in which Robinson demanded she rush back to New York from her Chicago home so she could work the day after Thanksgiving — which forced Weeks-Brittan to fly from the Windy City to Washington, DC and then to take a $400 Uber back to the Big Apple during a snowstorm.
The long legal battle between De Niro and Robinson, 41, first fluttered to life when the Oscar winner’s production company, Canal Productions, sued Robinson in August 2019 after accusing her of raiding company coffers, binge-watching Netflix on the clock and stealing millions of frequent-flyer miles from the “Raging Bull” actor.
“She was charging him 24/7 for three years!” Tom Harvey, an attorney for De Niro who’s known the star since the 1980s, testified Wednesday.
Robinson shot back with her own $12 million suit two months later, claiming that her famous boss of 11 years bullied, overworked and sexually harassed her in her role as his alleged “office wife.”
On Wednesday, Kaplan, an ex-full-timer with Canal and current independent contractor for the company, told the court that De Niro’s girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, was trying to get people to talk to the A-lister about Robinson’s behavior around the time she resigned.
Chen was “trying to get Bob to understand how crazy Chase was,” Kaplan testified.
After Robinson left — and allegedly sent ridiculous severance demands that included two years’ worth of severance pay and healthcare coverage — Kaplan said he was told to dig up “crazy Chase s–t” and write it down in one place.
He also said Robinson was “not very pleasant” to work with, and that he became an impromptu therapist for other angry Canal workers who complained about her behavior.
Kaplan also disputed accounts that the famed actor forced Robinson to scratch his back.
A blustery De Niro admitted Tuesday that she had, in fact, scratched his back twice — before launching into a tirade about how the case was “nonsense.”
“OK, twice? You got me!” De Niro fumed. “It was never done with any disrespect.”
But Kaplan said the “Casino” star never made her do it — De Niro would be struggling to reach a certain spot, and she would say, “Let me just get that,” Kaplan said.
“I think it happened a few times.”
Harvey, the De Niro attorney, said he told Robinson she wouldn’t be getting a letter of recommendation from De Niro due to the alleged thefts.
“I called her and said you’re not getting the letter of recommendation because Mr. De Niro thinks you stole the air miles — and other things,” Harvey told the court.
He’s set to finish his testimony on Thursday, after which Chen is expected to take the stand.
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Workers at De Niro's production company detail ex-assistant's erratic behavior at NYC trial - New York Post
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