A legal recruiter on Wednesday filed a sexual harassment complaint with explosive allegations against a national legal placement firm, Wegman Partners, its founder and its chairman of partner recruiting.

Wegman Partners, incorporated in Texas, describes itself online as a national full-service legal search firm, handling associate, partner and group placements with Am Law 200 law firms as well as in-house counsel departments.

Veronica McILraith

Veronica MclLraith, who was a managing director in Wegman's New York office, alleges she was “subjected to an astounding barrage of groping and sexually explicit and derogatory comments, texts, emails, and signs by her boss,” Scott Legg, who led Wegman's partner recruiting.

Legg and Wegman Partners' founder, Dallas-based Colby Wegman, are both named in the complaint as respondents, along with the company. Legg and Wegman did not return phone and email messages seeking comment on Wednesday.

An attorney who has represented Wegman Partners, Amber Welock in Dallas, also did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.

McILraith's attorney, Zoe Salzman, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, said her complaint was filed Wednesday afternoon with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, an increasingly attractive venue for parties who are subject to arbitration clauses and cannot sue in court but are not prevented from adjudicating their claims with a government body. Parties, if successful, can recover individual damages in matters before the commission.

McILraith claims Legg groped her breasts, forced her to touch him, licked and simulated sex with her office door and asked her to “contribute” to a drawing of genitalia. She also claims Legg hung the drawing of genitalia on his office door, where it remained for months, even during a visit by founder Wegman.

The complaint alleges that, over time, Legg escalated his harassment against McILraith, who joined the recruiting agency in 2014. She claims that on a regular basis he called her “babe,” “baby” or “honey,” and in July 2015, she claims, he aggressively grabbed at her breasts and “talked about jerking off in front of her and forcing her to jerk him off.”

McILraith also alleges Legg regularly appeared drunk and high on cocaine in the office, claiming he sometimes passed out in the office hallway.

The complaint includes photos, purportedly of Wegman's office, including a photo appearing to show Legg lying passed out on the floor, and screenshots of text messages between Legg and McILraith.

In one text message conversation allegedly between the two and shown in the complaint, Legg tells McILraith, “Full steam ahead on Polsinelli,” apparently referring to client work involving the Midwest-based law firm, and, in the same text message screenshot, sends Legg a graphically explicit message, adding, “Sitting here waiting for you.”

McILraith's complaint said when she refused to submit to Legg's harassment, “he became violent” and “called her a 'bitch,' threw furniture at her office, took work and commissions away from her, and threatened to discipline and fire her.”

She alleges she reported the sexual harassment to Wegman. “After a so-called investigation into Ms. McILraith's allegations,” her complaint said, “Mr. Wegman and Wegman Partners announced that Mr. Legg had been suspended for five days—which would have no effect on his earnings, which are based solely on commissions—and would be sent to sexual harassment training.”

The complaint said Wegman Partners demanded McILraith return to work a few feet away from Legg under dramatically less favorable working conditions, including without the files she had been working on before she raised her allegations of sexual harassment, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions.

“Wegman's demands that she return to work just a few feet away from Mr. Legg, and accept a loss of the commissions she had in the pipeline, were openly retaliatory and calculated to force Ms. McILraith out of her job,” she said, claiming Wegman sided with Legg and forced McILraith out of the recruiting firm this year.

The complaint comes amid increased public awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace, made more prominent in the last months by accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Salzman, McILraith's attorney, was part of the legal team that reportedly settled a sexual harassment claim on behalf of a former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl against former Fox host Bill O'Reilly for $32 million.

“We are witnessing an era where women are standing up and are tired of being subjected to this kind of relentless and disgusting sexual harassment,” Salzman said in an interview.

McILraith's complaint said she is entitled to compensatory damages and attorney fees and costs.

McILraith, who received her law degree in 2010 from Touro College, previously worked at two other recruiting firms, including DeltaForce Legal and Audrey Golden Associates.