Debrahlee Lorenzana, a former Citibank employee who claimed in 2010 that she was fired for being “too hot”, says she feels sorry for Lauren Odes, a woman who recently claimed the same thing about her employer and has hired famed attorney Gloria Allred to represent her.
Lorenzana was also represented by Allred and says that when the cameras weren’t present, neither was her legal council. In fact, she says, she was forced to learn the ways of the law books herself after Allred dropped her as a client in the middle of her lawsuit, which ended in Lorenzana losing the case. Allred won’t comment on why she withdrew as council for Lorenzana, but defended her actions in a statement.
“We did everything that we could to help her, and the many boxes of documents containing our work product and the evidence that we worked to obtain prove that we did everything that we could,” the statement reads.
“The only times I saw her (Allred) was when the media was there,” Lorenzana said. “I thought because she was a woman that she would really fight for me.”
Lorenzana and Odes both claim to have the same problem; their physical attributes. Lorenzana said her employers fired her for the way she looked, while Odes says the owners of the lingerie shop she worked at asked her to tape her breasts down and then forced her to put a bathrobe on over her work attire, which they deemed inappropriate. Lorenzana says if she could warn Odes about getting involved with Allred, she would.
“If I could turn back time, I would have not chosen Gloria Allred as my lawyer,” she said.
