Wall Street CEO facing second defamation lawsuit after ‘trashing’ former intern’s lawyers

HANNA Bouveng walked away with $20 million after suing her Wall Street boss following their affair. But what he did after the case could cost him a whole lot more.

THINGS have gone from bad to worse for Benjamin Wey

The Wall Street CEO was last month ordered to pay $20 million to his former intern Hanna Bouveng, 25, after pressuring her for sex and then trashing her online after their affair.

Not content to lose one defamation case, Mr Wey, the 43-year-old married boss of New York Global Group, is now being sued by Ms Bouveng’s lawyers, after calling them “midgets” and “extortionists” in another online rant.

Attorneys David Ratner and Benedict Morelli, who won the big jury award for Ms Bouveng in June, are suing Mr Wey for $400 million defamation over statements he posted on the website The Blot Magazine and on other public forums.

In the height slight, Mr Wey calls Mr Ratner a “4-foot-tall midget lawyer” who is “short on the law.”

Mr Ratner is, in fact, more than 5 feet tall.

The blog also falsely claims that Mr Ratner and partner Mr Morelli are “crooks” who are under FBI investigation for bank fraud, according to the suit.

Mr Ratner, Mr Morelli and two other attorneys from their firm want a judge to bar Mr Wey from making further defamatory statements.

They are also asking for $134 million in compensatory damages and $270 million in punitive damages.

Wey, right, leaves Manhattan Federal Court in New York.

A spokeswoman for Mr Wey’s lawyers said, “We’ll need to review this and cannot comment at this time.”

A New York court jury found Mr Wey had sexually harassed Ms Bouveng, eventually pressuring her into an affair, but then set out to ruin her reputation after finding her in bed with another man.

“I saw a 6-foot-tall homeless black man named James lying on her bed. The man was totally naked, dirty, totally drunk and perhaps on illegal drugs,” Wey wrote to Bouveng’s father, Nils Sundqvist, in one e-mail entered into evidence.

Jurors described the facts of the case as “disturbing”.

“We hope it will make companies and individuals think twice before personally defaming someone else,” the female juror said of their award.

“We felt she was hurt in everything that came out on social media and in the media.”

The verdict was handed down on June 30, but Wey did not attend.

“He’s got balls when he’s hiding behind his stupid [blog], but when it comes to facing the jurors, he doesn’t show up,” Mr Ratner told The Post in June.

Hanna Bouveng was all smiles after winning $20 million in damages from her ex-boss.

Originally published as Wall Street CEO facing second defamation lawsuit after ‘trashing’ former intern’s lawyers