Phillips & Associates represents Melisa Kulla in a federal lawsuit against Maksud Agadjani, the founder and CEO of Diamond District jeweler TraxNYC, and related defendants. The lawsuit alleges sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, blacklisting, and forced resignation. The case has drawn national media attention, including coverage in the New York Post.
The lawsuit describes what can happen when a person who controls an employee's job also controls her industry reputation, and then turns both against her. It sits at the center of the firm's core work: workplace relationship harassment and the retaliation that follows it, cases where authority over pay, employment, and future opportunity is used to pursue, punish, and silence an employee.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
According to the complaint, after Ms. Kulla ended her relationship with Agadjani and later declined his marriage proposal, he subjected her to vulgar and threatening messages, including ethnic slurs directed at her Albanian heritage and sexually degrading remarks. The complaint alleges that when she asked for time off to cope with the stress, ongoing retaliation forced her to resign.
The complaint further alleges that Agadjani used his large social media following in an effort to blacklist Ms. Kulla from the Diamond District by publicly threatening businesses that considered working with her. It also alleges that he continued to contact and harass her after she obtained an order of protection, including through a third party.
Partner Michelle Caiola, who represents Ms. Kulla, said in a statement to the New York Post:
"No number of social media followers and no amount of industry influence places anyone above the law. Ms. Kulla has shown remarkable courage in standing up to conduct designed to humiliate her, destroy her livelihood, and frighten her into silence. We intend to hold the defendants fully accountable."
The claims described here are allegations in a pending lawsuit. No court has ruled on them.
The Attorney Leading the Case
Michelle Caiola has spent her career litigating against powerful defendants on behalf of the people who work for them. Before joining Phillips & Associates as a partner, she litigated employment discrimination cases for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she led the glass-ceiling sex discrimination case against Morgan Stanley that resolved for $54 million and played a key role in the precedent-setting sexual harassment litigation against Mitsubishi. She received the EEOC Chair's Organizational Award three times.
Her work since then includes court victories that reshaped disability access in New York City, recognition as a Law360 MVP, and co-authored amicus briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court on pregnancy accommodation and EEOC enforcement. She is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Second and Ninth Circuits, and federal district courts in New York, Illinois, and California. She currently represents women pursuing claims against high-profile and powerful figures, including hip hop mogul Sean Combs.
Her practice at Phillips & Associates concentrates on matters involving people with significant workplace authority: executives, founders, business owners, physicians, law firm partners, and financial professionals, with particular depth in workplace relationship harassment and the retaliation that follows when an employee says no or ends a relationship. Defendants with money, fame, and followers are not new opposing parties for her. They are the kind she has faced for decades.
Why This Case Matters for Employees
Harassment cases are often imagined as a pattern of offensive comments inside an office. The allegations here describe something broader, and more common than many employees realize: a person with power over someone's job using that power after a relationship ends and advances are rejected.
Phillips & Associates treats these cases as their own category: workplace relationship harassment. It covers the boss who pursues an employee, the relationship with a superior that goes wrong, and the punishment that follows when an employee says no or ends it. The firm has built much of its practice around this pattern, because it is one of the most common ways workplace power gets abused and one of the least understood by the employees living through it.
Several features of the complaint reflect patterns the firm sees repeatedly in these workplace power dynamics cases.
Rejection followed by escalation. Under the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law, a relationship that was once consensual does not license what comes after it ends. The legal question is not whether the employee once said yes. It is whether the later conduct was unwelcome, whether she was free to say no, and how her working life changed after she did. Alleged sexually degrading messages speak to gender-based harassment. Alleged slurs directed at her Albanian heritage speak to national origin discrimination. In cases like this, the evidence is conduct: the messages themselves, who sent them, when, and what happened at work afterward.
Forced resignation is not the end of a claim. An employee who resigns because the conditions became intolerable may have a constructive discharge claim. Employers and their counsel sometimes treat a resignation letter as a release. It is not.
Retaliation does not stop at the office door. New York law prohibits retaliation that reaches beyond the workplace, including efforts to interfere with a former employee's future employment. Publicly pressuring businesses not to work with someone, as the complaint alleges here, is the modern form of blacklisting. A large social media following does not immunize that conduct. It documents it.
When the harasser runs the company, liability runs with him. Employers sometimes argue they cannot be responsible for conduct no one reported internally. That defense weakens when the person accused of the harassment is the owner or chief executive, because he is the company for legal purposes, and New York City law can hold an employer automatically liable for harassment by someone with supervisory authority.
One more feature is worth noting. Where the alleged conduct includes gender-motivated threats or violence, New York City's Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act can supply an additional civil claim outside the employment statutes. The firm litigates these claims regularly alongside harassment and retaliation cases.
Why Employees Wait to Report People Like This
Employees rarely report misconduct by a powerful person right away, and the reasons are practical, not weak. The person being reported often controls the employee's income, schedule, references, and standing in a small industry. Reporting can mean losing all of it at once. Many employees also doubt they will be believed, especially when the other person is wealthy, well known, or well connected, and some have watched human resources protect leadership before. When the alleged harasser owns the company, there may be no one above him to report to at all.
None of that delay erases a claim. Courts and juries understand why people stay silent, and the law measures the conduct, not the speed of the complaint. It is also why every attorney and staff member at Phillips & Associates receives trauma-informed training. Clients in these cases are often describing the worst period of their working lives, and how a firm listens shapes what it learns and what it can prove.
How Phillips & Associates Builds These Cases
Cases like this one are built, not filed. Each matter is staffed with a dedicated litigation team led by a partner or senior litigator, supported by an associate and a paralegal. The team reconstructs the before-and-after timeline: how the client was treated, paid, scheduled, and reviewed before the rejection, and what changed afterward.
Digital evidence usually decides these cases, and the alleged conduct here is largely digital. The firm's discovery practice reaches text messages, direct messages, WhatsApp and Signal threads, social media posts and their deletion history, metadata, and witness accounts from inside the industry. The firm funds its cases through depositions, expert witnesses, and trial when necessary, and defendants know it. That is what creates the leverage to resolve matters on strong terms, and the readiness to try the ones that do not resolve.
Questions Employees Ask in Situations Like This
Can harassment after a workplace relationship ends be illegal?
Yes. A prior relationship does not prevent harassment, discrimination, or retaliation claims. The law looks at power, whether the conduct became unwelcome, and whether the employee was punished after ending the relationship or rejecting advances.
Is it retaliation if it happens after I already resigned or was pushed out?
It can be. New York law reaches post-employment retaliation, including reference interference, reputational attacks, and efforts to keep a former employee from being hired elsewhere.
Can someone's social media following or industry influence matter in my case?
Yes. Public posts, direct messages, and pressure campaigns are evidence. Influence used to threaten a person's livelihood can support claims involving retaliation, blacklisting, and coercion, and it rarely disappears cleanly.
I quit instead of being fired. Do I still have a case?
Possibly. If intolerable conditions forced the resignation, the law may treat it as a constructive discharge, which is analyzed like a termination.
What if HR ignored my complaint, or the harasser is the owner?
A claim does not depend on human resources acting. If HR dismissed the complaint, or there was no realistic way to report because the harasser ran the company, employees can still pursue claims directly, and how the complaint was handled often becomes evidence itself.
How long do I have to take legal action in New York?
Deadlines vary by claim. A federal charge with the EEOC generally must be filed within 300 days. Harassment and discrimination claims under the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws generally allow three years to file in court. Some claims carry shorter or longer windows, so the safest step is to have the specific facts reviewed early.
What should I do first if this is happening to me?
Preserve everything. Messages, posts, screenshots with dates, and the names of people who saw what happened. Then speak with an employment lawyer before resigning, responding to the harasser, or signing anything. Early steps shape the outcome.
Speak With an Employment Lawyer
If you are facing sexual harassment, retaliation, or punishment after ending a workplace relationship, Phillips & Associates represents employees only, and always on contingency. There is no fee unless the firm recovers for you. The firm represents employees across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Call 866-229-9441 for a free and confidential consultation, or contact the firm online.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The allegations described in this post are claims made in a pending lawsuit, and no court has ruled on them.