Nightmare on Wall Street

Whom would you believe: Christian Curry, who says he was fired by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter for appearing nude in a gay men’s magazine? Or company officials, who say Curry was fired for lying on his expense reports? Would you believe police, who say Curry solicited an undercover cop to plant a racist e-mail in Morgan Stanley’s computer system? Or Curry’s lawyer, who says Morgan Stanley paid an informant to entrap Curry in order to discredit him?

This sordid tabloid riddle went mainstream last week when Curry, who is black, slapped Morgan Stanley with a Wall Street-size $1.35 billion lawsuit. The complaint charges that co-workers at the investment bank subjected Curry to racial harassment and discrimination during the nine months he was employed there. Then, Curry claims, after he appeared nude in the April 1998 issue of Playguy, a gay magazine, he was fired on the assumption that he was homosexual. He says he’s not.

Nailing down the truth in this case may be as ambitious as the financial claim in Curry’s lawsuit. Several months after he left Morgan Stanley last year, the Columbia University graduate was arrested for paying undercover police $200 to plant racist e-mail messages in the Morgan Stanley computer system. The alleged motive was to bolster a planned discrimination lawsuit. Yet last week the New York district attorney’s office dropped the charges after discovering that just days after Curry’s arrest, Morgan Stanley officials had paid $10,000 to an informant working with the same undercover police who busted the young analyst.

One problem: nobody will explain what the $10,000 was for, but it was enough to make the D.A. rethink its case against Curry. Now Morgan Stanley is under investigation.

Whoever paid whom, the lawsuit pitches Wall Street into familiar territory, where charges of racial discrimination have proliferated for years. “Wall Street is still very white male,” says Ivan Smith, a prominent New York City employment-rights attorney. “There are tons of discrimination cases there.” Just three months ago, Morgan Stanley settled a similar claim of racism by two black employees (the firm denied wrongdoing). For his part, Curry alleges he was paid less than his white counterparts and was often assigned menial work. Co-workers allegedly derided him and other African-American employees. After the magazine appeared, Curry says, people left messages calling him a “faggot” and a “monkey.”

A potential hole in Curry’s case is that he acknowledges in his suit that he used his expense account for “adult entertainment” with a client. That, suggests attorney Smith, may abet Morgan Stanley’s argument that Curry abused his expense privileges. Perhaps the critical question is whether Curry would still be working at Morgan Stanley had he never appeared nude on the magazine cover. Says Curry: “I should never have posed for those pictures.” No matter who wins the lawsuit, both sides may be able to agree on that.

–Reported by Maryanne Murray Buechner/New York