After former leaders of the Woodstock Inn and Resort filed a lawsuit against their past colleagues, alleging an abusive culture at the well-known hotel and nearby Billings Farm and Museum, the defendants filed their own claims on Monday, highlighting what they assert were highly questionable payments to the suit’s original whistleblower.
The counterclaims allege that Ellen Pomeroy, former board chair of the Woodstock Foundation, and Sal Iannuzzi, the board’s former vice chair, showed inappropriate personal and financial favoritism toward a whistleblower, Anna Berez, who sought to expose a toxic work environment at the inn and farm.
The suit, which Pomeroy and Iannuzzi filed last month in Vermont Superior Court Windsor County unit, portrays an abusive culture at Woodstock’s flagship tourist destinations — including sexual misconduct, discrimination and retaliation against whistleblowers that was allegedly upheld by management.
The Woodstock Foundation owns the Woodstock Inn as well as Billings Farm and Museum, a dairy farm and operating partner of the adjoining Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.
In a letter to staff that was provided to VTDigger, James Sligar, the foundation’s chair, reiterated many of the counterclaims filed in court and summarized the findings from an investigation led by an outside counsel hired by the foundation.
The letter and court documents detail a series of payments to Anna Berez, who first brought allegations of widespread misconduct at the inn to management’s attention.
The foundation’s leaders allege Iannuzzi, “without the Board’s knowledge or approval, directed that (Berez) be paid $100,000 as a bonus” from a non-payroll account to keep the payment confidential. Iannuzzi later directed that the payment be raised to $130,000, according to court documents.
In an interview on Monday, Iannuzzi called the letter a “fabrication.”
The staff-wide message claimed Iannuzzi and Pomeroy raised Berez’s salary from $51,000 to $90,000, and that Iannuzzi sought reimbursement from the inn after he threw Berez a birthday party catered by the resort.
According to the counterclaims, Iannuzzi gave Berez $30,000 of his own money to put toward starting her own company.
The letter to staff also alleges Iannuzzi took charge of resort management without permission and began signing documents using the title “President and General Manager of the Resort,” in what the letter calls an act of “self promotion.”
In an interview, Sligar summarized the Woodstock Foundation’s perspective on Iannuzzi’s actions.
“We think that an attempt was made to take over the inn unfairly and inappropriately,” Sligar said.
Sligar and his colleagues asserted that it was Iannuzzi who perpetuated a “toxic” workplace, “repeatedly berating people, referring to people in a derogatory manner, and yelling in the workplace.”
Sligar’s message to employees categorically denies one of the plaintiff’s primary claims: that the staff at the inn and Billings Farm perpetuated a toxic work climate toward women and LGBTQ+ people.
“The (outside counsel’s) report did not find there to be any systemic discrimination or prejudice against female or LGBTQ persons within the Resort or Billings Farm,” Sligar wrote.
On Monday, Iannuzzi called the letter “99% untrue,” spelling out his version of events.
“We gave sizable raises, comparable in scope to Anna’s to other people,” Iannuzzi said, describing the resort and farm’s salaries as “well below market” and requiring increases.
Iannuzzi acknowledged that he had spent “hundreds” of hours on the phone with Berez — sometimes late into the night — in order to “gather information” and learn about the “organizational structure” of the resort and farm. That information, he said, would help him work to reform the workplace.
As for the $130,000 “bonus” payment to Berez, Iannuzzi said that she received only $40,000, and that staff who had been fired received significantly larger severance payments in the past.
“Anna had been underpaid dramatically for several years,” Iannuzzi said. “I thought we should reward Anna for her efforts,” adding that she sought to reform the culture at the resort and Billings Farm “at very significant personal risk.”
“She earned it; she deserved it.”
Berez said the foundation’s characterization of her raise leaves out that she was making far less money than her peers. She also noted that she never asked to be compensated for bringing to light allegations of misconduct at the resort.
“I have been contacted by at least 20 current employees who have said thank you to me for being a voice,” Berez said.
The staff-wide letter only furthers the resort’s culture of retaliation, Berez suggested.
The message “puts a target on the back of anyone who’s known to associate with me,” she said. ”I don’t want people’s spirits to be crushed.”
The defendants, who filed the counterclaims, include the Woodstock Foundation, its trustees and Woodstock Holdings LLC, a for-profit subsidiary of the foundation. Together as part of their counterclaims, they are seeking damages and reimbursement for the payments made to Berez.