A senior vice chairman at Wells Fargo was raped by her colleague who barged into her hotel room and assaulted her while she was intoxicated during a business trip in Southern California, based on a bombshell lawsuit.
The unidentified married woman filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday alleging that the bank retaliated against her after she reported the alleged rape to management by excluding her from necessary meetings and reassigning a few of her clients.
She is suing the bank and 4 Wells Fargo staff for unspecified damages.
The lawsuit names Eric R. Pagel, a senior investment strategist and managing director at a branch of Wells Fargo within the El Segundo section of Los Angeles, because the bank executive who allegedly raped her in a Bakersfield, Calif. hotel room in late January 2020.
Pagel and Jane Doe were amongst a bunch of six Wells Fargo employees who drove to Bakersfield for a series of meetings with high-end clients on the Padre Hotel on Jan. 28, 2020.
The Post has reached out to the hotel in search of comment.
Within the early evening hours, the six employees met for drinks within the hotel lobby before heading to dinner, the lawsuit says.
Eric R. Pagel (seen here with an unidentified female not connected to the story) was named within the lawsuit because the rapist.Facebook/Eric Pagel
When Jane Doe and one other Wells Fargo worker, Meena Kotak, stepped away to go to the lavatory, she “inadvertently left her purse, phone and drink unattended on the table.”
Jane Doe alleges that she returned only to seek out that Pagel, David Weitzel, Mark Peterson, and Brian Ray, who remained on the table, had rummaged through her purse and stole her bank card and hotel room key.
Weitzel, who is known as within the lawsuit alongside Pagel, Peterson, and Ray, left Wells Fargo in December 2020, based on his LinkedIn page. A month after his departure, he took an executive position at First Republic Bank in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
The Post has sought comment from Weitzel and First Republic Bank. Calls to Pagel’s phone went unanswered. The Post has also left messages on Pagel’s social media accounts.
At around 9:30 p.m. that night, the six Wells Fargo executives proceeded to a bar, where they drank more alcoholic beverages. Because the night went on, Jane Doe “became increasingly intoxicated” and “her memory became increasingly blurred,” based on the lawsuit.
Jane Doe alleges she “recalled walking back to her hotel room” along with her manager, Weitzel, who on the time was also a senior vice chairman and the manager of regional private banking for Wells Fargo.
The unidentified woman alleges that Pagel raped and assaulted her in her room on the Padre Hotel in Bakersfield, Calif. on the night of Jan. 28, 2020.Facebook/The Padre Hotel
Weitzel “opened [her] hotel room door and left her inside,” based on court documents. Jane Doe “subsequently received a knock on the door.”
When she opened the door, Pagel “barged in and started kissing” her, it was alleged. He then “proceeded to sexually assault and rape” Jane Doe “while she was intoxicated,” based on court papers.
The following morning, Jane Doe “recalled Pagel being in her hotel room” though her memory of what took place hours before was “blurry,” the court documents state.
Because the day went on, the “memory of the rape got here back to her in fragments,” based on the lawsuit. She then recalled seeing Pagel “remove his belt buckle” before “feeling Pagel kiss her lips and her hip, then grab [her] breasts and her entire body,” it was alleged.
Two days later, Jane Doe “confronted Pagel for a proof on what had happened,” based on the court filing.
Pagel “admitted to [Jane Doe] that that they had sex multiple times without contraceptives,” it was alleged. Pagel was also “aware” that she was intoxicated, based on court documents.
On Feb. 3 — six days after the alleged rape — Jane Doe consulted along with her gynecologist about obtaining a rape kit and being tested to see whether she was drugged on the night of Jan. 28, based on court papers.
However the gynecologist told Jane Doe that any drug that she ingested nearly per week earlier would have been flushed out of her system by then, based on court papers.
The above image shows a hotel room on the Padre. The girl alleges that Pagel barged into her room while she was intoxicated and raped her.Instagram/@thepadrehotel
The doctor also told her that a rape kit can be “invalid” because she had already showered and had been sexually lively along with her husband because the alleged rape, the lawsuit states.
The girl also alleges within the court filing that she was subjected to repeated instances of sexual harassment, including vulgar remarks and crude innuendos about her appearance.
Pagel is alleged to have repeatedly suggested that Jane Doe “exchange sex for money” by divorcing her husband and “entering into bed with a wealthy client’s son,” based on the lawsuit.
Just weeks after the alleged rape, Pagel allegedly told Jane Doe she can be a “great match” for his or her “wealthy client” since the client “is interested in beautiful women and is having a sexual relationship along with his secretary.”
When Jane Doe complained to Weitzel about Pagel’s “inappropriate comments,” Weitzel “merely suggested that Plaintiff shouldn’t give Pagel a ‘window of opportunity’ to be inappropriate,” based on the court filing.
In November of 2020, Jane Doe “built up the courage” to file a proper grievance with Wells Fargo’s “Ethics Hotline,” based on the lawsuit. She also filed a grievance with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Lomitas.
Her lawyer, Ronaldo Zambrano, said police didn’t pursue the case since it was a “he- said/she-said” situation.
The Post reached out to the sheriff’s department for comment.
After filing the Wells Fargo grievance, Jane Doe alleges that she was “subjected to adversarial actions regarding her employment” — including having her clients reassigned to a different worker without her input and being excluded from necessary client communications, the lawsuit alleges.
Wells Fargo “did near nothing to really investigate” the rape allegation, the lawsuit alleges. The bank also didn’t probe her complains of sexual harassment, it was alleged.
After Jane Doe filed a report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April 2021, the bank finally launched an internal investigation, the lawsuit states.
The girl complained about Pagel’s behavior to her manager, David Weitzel (pictured), based on the lawsuit.Linkedin/David Weitzel
Right across the time she filed her grievance to the EEOC, Jane Doe “began a medical leave for stress, anxiety and depression stemming from each the trauma from the sexual assault but in addition the utter lack of care by Wells Fargo” to analyze the incident, based on the lawsuit.
Jane Doe’s attorneys blasted Wells Fargo as “incompetent” for dragging the investigation along for some eight months.
In July 2021, Jane Doe resigned from Wells Fargo as her continued employment on the bank was “intolerable for her mental well-being,” the lawsuit states.
Pagel can also be alleged to have groped Jane Doe on a variety of occasions, the suit claimed.
He allegedly made frequent comments on her appearance, saying that she “age[d] like nice wine” and complimented her on how she looked while wearing “skinny jeans” that “made her butt look good.”
Calls to Pagel’s mobile phone in search of a response went unanswered.
A source near the situation insists that Wells Fargo conducted an intensive internal investigation of the matter.Getty Images
A Wells Fargo spokesperson told The Post: “We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and are reviewing the lawsuit.”
A source near the situation told The Post that Pagel was a “colleague” and a “peer” of Jane Doe, and that she did circuitously report back to him on the time of the alleged incident.
The bank also conducted its own investigation into the matter, but the outcomes of the probe are unknown, based on the source.
Ronald Zambrano, the Los Angeles-based attorney for Jane Doe, acknowledged to The Post that Pagel was not Jane Doe’s boss.
But under California law, Pagel meets the legal definition of a “supervisor” who had authority over others inside the company hierarchy — although she may not have directly reported to him, based on Zambrano.
“The concept Mr. Pagel, in his capability as Managing Director and Senior Investment Strategist didn’t have authority as defined [by law] is quixotic, if not out right farcical on Wells Fargo’s behalf,” Zambrano told The Post, citing the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
“Wells Fargo may not like FEHA’s definition, but they may eventually need to cope with it,” the attorney said.
Ray was a non-public banker and vice chairman of Wells Fargo on the time of the incident. Peterson was senior wealth strategist and a senior vice chairman on the bank.
Attempts to succeed in Ray and Peterson weren’t successful.
