A senior manager at Bloomberg LP bombarded a male employee with crude sexual messages — asking about lubricant and sex acts during a work chat — while the media giant looked the other way, according to a bombshell lawsuit obtained by The Post.
Charles Kyle O’Rourke, an account manager who has worked at Bloomberg since 2019, accused a senior manager of turning the company’s own internal messaging system into a vehicle for sexual harassment — and blaming Bloomberg itself for letting it happen.
The suit, filed against the financial data giant earlier this week in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, names Peter Elliot as the alleged harasser.
“Over the course of his nearly six-year tenure, Mr. O’Rourke has been subjected to repeated acts of sexual harassment by a senior manager, Peter Elliot, and has experienced a hostile work environment exacerbated by inadequate management support and failure to provide reasonable accommodations for his deteriorating mental health,” the complaint alleges.
In February 2025, according to the complaint, Elliot fired off a harassing message to O’Rourke as the account manager was making plans for international travel.
“Your life is terrible. Let’s hope there’s a Thai out there who can soothe you. Do you take the whole tribe? Or do you just pack some lube and some Nasty Pig cutoffs and get on the plane?” Elliot allegedly wrote.
Elliot also allegedly told O’Rourke he should “spit in [his] coffee” and that “teeth marks may have to wait” — crude innuendo the suit claims was entirely unwelcome.
O’Rourke allegedly reported Elliot’s conduct to upper-level management and executives. Bloomberg did nothing, the complaint alleges, and the harassment continued.
When O’Rourke told his manager, David LaPaglia, that his ADHD symptoms and anxiety had worsened and asked to discuss possible accommodations, LaPaglia retaliated with a systematic campaign to push O’Rourke out, the suit alleges.
LaPaglia subjected him to relentless micromanagement, demanded hourly task updates, stripped clients from his portfolio and then told those same clients that O’Rourke was no longer at the firm, the suit claims.
O’Rourke took a medical leave of absence on Aug. 19 following what the suit called a “transparent attempt to force Plaintiff to resign from the firm.”
The complaint, filed April 13 by attorneys Reyna Lubin and Andrew Clark of Eisenberg & Baum, LLP, brings six claims against Bloomberg under New York State and City Human Rights Law: hostile work environment, sex discrimination, disability discrimination, retaliation, aiding and abetting, and whistleblower retaliation under New York Labor Law.
Bloomberg is “strictly liable” for its managers’ conduct, the suit argues, because they exercised supervisory responsibility over O’Rourke. By refusing to discipline Elliot or LaPaglia, the company didn’t just fail to stop the abuse — it allegedly condoned it.
O’Rourke is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and a court order forcing Bloomberg to overhaul its harassment reporting and training policies. A jury trial is demanded.
“We have looked into his claim and are confident it has no merit,” Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg LP told The Post in a statement.
Neither Elliot nor O’Rourke could be reached for comment.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
