‘I’m just an old fart’: Bum slap, underwear prank costs boss $935,000 in sex harassment case

THE only thing more outrageous than what “sleazer geezer” Jerry Fund did to his office manager Monica Cardenas was his awful excuse.

THE 90-year-old owner of a US meter-reading company who was fined a record $377,000 for sexually harassing an employee says he can’t be at fault — because he’s too old to be a sex harasser.

Jerry Fund, head of Automatic Meter Reading Corp, was also ordered by New York’s Commission on Human Rights to pay $587,408 in emotional-distress damages and back wages to Monica Cardenas, 48, who claimed she quit her office manager job over his sexually explicit comments.

“This fine reflects New York City’s commitment to combat sexual harassment,” the commission said in a statement.

But Fund, dubbed the “sleazer geezer”, blasted the decision, saying that, at his advanced age, he was in no mood for randy office high jinks.

“I did nothing,” Fund said. “I am an old fart.”

“I have had many girls who work with me in the office, and no one has ever complained in 30 years. I was happily married to a fantastic woman 67 years who passed away a year ago.”

According to a complaint filed in 2011, the harassment started when Cardenas was promoted to office manager in 2008 and began working with Fund.

“[She] alleged that Fund regularly made sexualised and sexist comments to her, humiliated her, and forcibly touched her on several occasions, including, among other acts, striking her on the buttocks and shoving a newspaper in her underwear,” commission papers say.

On another occasion, he allegedly told her that they could run away together and that he would provide the Viagra and Cialis.

Cardenas also alleged that he hung up in the office a cartoon of a scantily clad woman and wrote “Our Monica” on it.

The case went to an administrative trial in 2014. Fund lost, with a judge recommending he pay the commission a $104,000 fine and pay Cardenas $277,000 in emotional-distress damages and $132,000 in lost wages.

But the commission announced the actual fines Monday and imposed the max $75,000 penalty — the highest ever.

The penalty was increased in part because Fund failed to produce certain financial statements, officials said.

Including damages, he now owes a total of $935,000 to the city and Cardenas.

Fund called the ruling “absolutely ridiculous.”

“I never made any advances towards her,” he said. “She worked here 13 years, so how bad can I have been?”

The Legal Aid Society, which represented Cardenas, said the fine “sends a strong message.”

“Ms. Cardenas suffered a great deal having lived through the constant harassment over a three-year period at the hands of Jerry Fund,” said Amy Hong, a staff attorney.