Facebook parent Meta rehired worker after he stalked a coworker for over a year, lawsuit says

A former one Meta An employee who was placed on a “Do Not Hire” list after stalking and harassing one of the company's employees was rehired by the tech giant after it gutted its talent and recruiting department, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday has been submitted.

The lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court on behalf of Meta employee James Napoli, accuses the company of violating New York City's human rights law and of negligence in taking the person back. The company is also accused of retaliation after it allegedly sidelined Napoli and removed him from major projects when he raised concerns that the person had been rehired.

“I've talked to my employer about this several times and I was told that he wouldn't be able to enter our offices, that he wouldn't be rehired, and then all of a sudden this guy reaches out for me [on Meta’s internal messaging system]Napoli, a marketing leader who works out of Meta's New York City office, told CNBC in an interview. “I trusted that my employer could protect me, right? Because stalkers and harassers are workplace dangers too… And this isn't just a danger to me, this is a dangerous individual allowed back into the workplace.”

The lawsuit comes after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March 2023 that Meta would reduce the size of its recruiting team as part of a larger strategy to cut 21,000 jobs, remove layers of middle management and operate more efficiently.

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

While Wall Street has responded positively to Meta's cost-cutting plans, layoffs across the company's customer service and trust and security teams have made it more difficult for the social networking giant to respond to the concerns of small businesses and influencers, as well as state and local elections. officials using Facebook and Instagram, CNBC previously reported.

In the wake of Meta's cost-cutting and resulting layoffs, lawyers for Napoli say in the lawsuit that the company is “more reliant on hiring employees through third-party contractors” and employs “far fewer recruiters to screen applicants,” which is a negatively impacted their ability to catch red flags appropriately.

“Meta's employment practices are apparently so chaotic, reckless and ineffective that the company is failing to track the most fundamental data point in the workplace: the dangerous people who pose a serious risk to Meta's own employees,” says the lawsuit, filed by attorneys . Carrie Goldberg and Peter Romer-Friedman, states. “Yet Meta tells the public and government officials that the company has the ability to protect the personal data of billions of children and adults on their platforms.”

Meta has previously dealt with similar allegations that it employs employees who have engaged in stalking and related activities. For example, in 2018, the company said it fired a security engineer who allegedly used internal data to stalk women online.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The person accused of stalking Napoli, identified in the complaint only by the initials “GF”, was a member of Meta's marketing team before being fired in November 2022 when the company cut 13% of its staff as part of a larger restructuring .

Before the layoffs, GF and Napoli saw each other occasionally in meetings but were little more than “working acquaintances,” Napoli said. After GF lost his job, he contacted Napoli for support and asked him for coffee. During that conversation, the accused stalker began making “disturbing” comments, the file states.

“[He] told me that he hears voices, that God talks to him, and that God has been talking to him about me since April of that year, and he sent me a list of documents that were his diary entries over the months,” Napoli recalls himself.

Napoli reported the incident “immediately” to his manager and to HR, and says he was initially concerned for GF's well-being. But the following year the situation escalated, Napoli says.

GF began sending Napoli up to 30 messages a day, contacting his family members and referencing Napoli's partner, friends and even his dog, Luigi, in messages.

“I'm being tormented by an AI technology that I don't know where it came from and I feel like my love for you is being used for experiences I didn't agree with while I'm being told by spirits that you and I are the two messengers,” GF wrote in a message to Napoli, according to the complaint.

GF discovered where Napoli lived and “personally delivered a large number of disturbing writings and drawings” to the apartment, forcing Napoli and his partner to move, the lawsuit said.

“It really felt like I was drowning for a long time because I just couldn't do anything to escape. … It was really terrifying,” Napoli said. “I was worried about going out, I was worried about my dog, I was worried about my partner, because they were all mentioned by this person.”

Napoli reported GF to police and considered getting a restraining order, but under New York state law, protection orders are only available to people who have an intimate or familial relationship with their stalker, the lawsuit said.

In September 2023, Napoli informed Meta that the stalking had increased “both in frequency and severity”, and the HR department assured him that GF was on the company's “Do Not Hire” list and the “No Entry” list which identifies people who should not be allowed into company buildings.

But just four months later, the company hired GF back as a contractor after he apparently slipped through the cracks in the hiring process, the lawsuit said. Napoli learned his accused stalker was back at Meta when GF's name popped up on Workplace, the company's internal messaging system. Napoli says he received a message from GF saying he had been rehired and would see him at meetings and events.

“To see all that come back after I was given assurances that I would be kept safe, it was really distressing,” Napoli said. 'I went straight there [HR]…they let me know that they were momentarily stunned. They didn't have an answer as to how it could have happened and they let me know they would investigate.”

Napoli says he spent the next month “living in fear of interacting with GF at work” until Meta informed him that GF had been terminated. However, after GF lost his job for the second time, his “stalking and harassment of Mr. Napoli significantly intensified and became more creative, sexually violent and obsessive,” the lawsuit said.

While Napoli struggled with the ongoing stalking, he also faced what the lawsuit alleges was retaliation at Meta for complaining to his managers and to HR about the decision to rehire GF.

Napoli was tapped to lead an artificial intelligence marketing campaign at Meta, but says that in response to his complaints, those projects were taken away and he was sidelined with reduced responsibilities.

In his complaint, Napoli asks for damages but does not specify an amount. He also asked the court to issue judgments that would ban GF from being rehired by Meta and prohibit the company from “taking further discriminatory or retaliatory actions” against Napoli.

“I want to be able to do my job, and I want to be able to do my job without feeling like the shoe is going to drop,” Napoli said. “I'm very passionate about my work and I'm very proud of my work, and that's really all I want to be able to do.”

Napoli said he decided to tell his story because he wants Meta to implement reforms that will prevent something like this from happening again.

“It doesn't seem to me that there are the right processes in place to prevent this from happening to me or anyone else,” Napoli said. “Everyone deserves a safe workplace.”