MARIETTA, Ga. - (CN) Waffle House CEO Joe Rogers Jr. and his former assistant filed dueling lawsuits: she claiming he sexually assaulted her more than 100 times, and he claiming she illegally videotaped their consensual sexual encounters and is trying to extort "millions" from him.
Rogers sued Mye Brindle in Cobb County Superior Court on Sept. 19.
Brindle, a 43-year-old mother, responded and filed a counterclaim on Oct. 18.
She filed her own complaint, still under seal, in Fulton County State Court. She filed a police report on Oct. 5. Brindle claims that she worked in Rogers' home for 9 years, managing his estate, and that a condition of her employment was that she "perform sexual services," and that Rogers "required Brindle to masturbate him."
Both the complaints, counterclaims and answers were sealed until a judge unsealed Rogers' lawsuit in the last week of November.
Rogers claims: "Defendant surreptitiously filmed and recorded plaintiff engaging in sexual encounters in the privacy of his bedroom without his knowledge or consent thereby intruding upon his right to seclusion, solitude, and privacy."
He adds: "Defendant has threatened to proceed with litigation and reveal her videos if plaintiff does not agree to pay her 'millions' of dollars.
Waffle House has more than 1,700 outlets in 25 states, mainly in the South, according to industry publications. The corporation is based in Norcross, Ga., in Gwinnett County.
The Cobb County judge's order to unseal the came after the Marietta Daily Journal's reported on an Atlanta Police Department investigation of Rogers. The article was based on Brindle's police report, filed on Oct. 5.
No formal charges have been filed against Rogers.
Rogers says he hired Brindle as a housekeeper in 2003. He claims the intimate relationship began quickly.
"During the course of her employment with WH Capital as a housekeeper at plaintiff's residence, Plaintiff and Defendant became engaged in an infrequent, but consistent, series of consensual non-intercourse sexual encounters," his complaint states.
He claims they "continued their infrequent, but consistent, series of consensual non-intercourse sexual encounters until June 2008, when plaintiff's employment ended."
Both Rogers and Brindle agree that the sex stopped when she resigned.
However, according to the police report and Brindle's counterclaim, "Defendant [Brindle] admits that during the course and scope of her employment for plaintiff [Rogers] and various of his entities, and over a period of numerous years, plaintiff directed and required Brindle to perform sex acts upon him, attempted to force himself upon her sexually and otherwise committed numerous acts of sexual battery and sexual harassment against her. Defendant further admits that these acts were not consensual."
Brindle claims that after he hired her in 2003, Rogers bought a massage table and instructed her to give him massages as part of her duties as a personal assistant.
"It became Rogers' practice to be naked during the massages. Sometime, during 2003, while Brindle was giving Rogers a massage, Rogers began directing Brindle to masturbate him," according to her counterclaim.
It adds: "At a minimum, beginning in approximately 2003, Rogers required Brindle, as a condition of her employment, to masturbate him."
Brindle claims that Rogers fired her after she broke both legs and was unable to work. But in 2009, she says, Rogers and his wife offered her a new position as a house manager and she accepted, running the day-to-day operations of Rogers' household.