Exclusive | Worker openly ran ‘rape room,’ assaulted employees in clothing company French Connection’s NYC factory: suit 

A sicko textile worker ran a “rape room” at the Queens factory of a major British clothing brand where he openly preyed on female colleagues, a shocking new lawsuit claims.

Greenpoint resident Aleksandra Pietras said the depraved male co-worker began attacking her just weeks after she started working at the factory operated by the French Connection, sexually assaulting her dozens of times for over a year, according to her suit filed Sunday.

“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” Pietras, 60, told The Post in an emotional interview. “This man destroyed my life.”

The worker, Jose Sabando, 45, allegedly dragged Pietras to remote parts of the Hollis factory to assault her, until he eventually broke off a padlock to an empty room, where he continued to unleash his torment, the suit states.

Inside the room, where Pietras says she was raped at least four more times, the floor was covered in handprints and fluids, according to the suit and photographs shared with The Post.

The “brutal” man’s behavior was so well known in the factory that the largely female and Polish employees even told each other to avoid him as he lurked in the hallways during work hours, waiting for women to walk by, the suit states.

At least four other Polish co-workers were victimized, Pietras’ suit claims, and the factory supervisors allegedly either knew or willfully ignored the worker’s reign of sexual terror.

Pietras was fired days after she threatened to go to the police unless he stopped, states her Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit, which names Sabando, factory supervisors and the French Company as defendants.

Speaking through her lawyer who translated from her native Polish, Pietras said she’s now scared to even leave her home.

“It was the worst year of my life,” the distraught woman said. “I don’t know how long it will take to put my life back together.”

Pietras began working her minimum wage job as a textile worker at the factory for the French Connection — a clothing company known for their provocative FCUK branding — on Jamaica Avenue in June 2023.

“I really enjoyed the work,” she said. 

Right away, she noticed Sabando, a gregarious fellow textile worker who would talk and joke with everyone, including her, Pietras said.

A few weeks into the job, Sabando “began following and accosting” her during work hours, the lawsuit claims.

“I was walking down the stairs from one floor to another,” Pietras recalled of the first alleged incident, “and he appeared from behind a column.”

Without saying a word, Pietras said he suddenly forcibly grabbed her and started kissing her, putting his tongue in her mouth.

“I became extremely scared. I was in shock,” she said. “No man has ever done anything like this to me before… I felt like I’m dealing with a wild man.”

Pietras was worried that “I was gonna get fired if I say [sic] anything.”

During that first alleged rape, as she fought to free herself, she recalled him telling her: “I love you.”

From that point on, Sabando “began forcefully dragging [Pietras] into a space located behind a column within an empty hallway on the second floor of the French Connection Factory,” where he would “repeatedly force her to have sexual intercourse,” the lawsuit states.

The brutal attacks would last five minutes or so until he finished, and typically occurred near the end of her shift, Pietras said, when the factory would be less crowded.

“I was walking towards the subway and crying hysterically all the way home,” Pietras told The Post. 

From that moment on, the horrific alleged rapes became a regular part of work for Pietras, who said she was violated  “dozens” of times between that summer and the end of 2023. 

She refused to take breaks at work to avoid leaving the factory floor, she told The Post, and her searches for a new job were fruitless. 

“I wanted to have the job,” Pietras said, saying that she really liked the work.

“I’m gonna try to power through and be strong,” she recalled telling a close friend who had urged her to quit.

Her seasonal work ended that November and Pietras traveled back to Poland for a few months until last spring, when she returned to New York City and to the factory. 

Pietras said that’s when “it turned into a real nightmare.”

While she was in Poland, Sabando had allegedly smashed open a padlocked door in the factory where he now brought his victims — and where Pietras “observed multiple handprints and liquids on the floors and walls,” the suit claims.

She couldn’t eat for days after the alleged attacks, which she said  “were the most violent and aggressive.”

“I lost 20 pounds,” she said, noting that pants that she had just bought in Poland now barely fit her waist. 

Pietras started opening up to her Polish co-workers and  learned that Sabando’s abuse was an open secret and that past victims had ended up being fired once the violent creep grew tired of them, the suit claims.

Sabando’s girlfriend, who worked at a different company in the same building, “appeared at the French Connection Factory multiple times during [Pietras’] shifts, screamed at her, and called her a ‘whore’ in front of multiple coworkers and supervisors,” according to the filing.

“She says that ‘you’re not the first one. They always do this to him — they always come and bother him, and you’re just another one,’” Pietras said the girlfriend would tell her. 

Pietras’ co-workers said that was part of the smear campaign to build a case against her — that would paint Sabando as the victim of Pietras’ sexual predation.

Sabando allegedly made multiple fake social media accounts in her name this past fall, using pictures of her, and sent messages to himself and to his girlfriend in poorly-translated Polish, the suit states.

“‘Oh, look, she’s writing to my girlfriend,’” Pietras recalled Sabando saying to a group of workers in the break room. 

“‘She’s writing to me. She’s insane — look at that,’” Pietras said he would claim, passing the phone around and drawing laughs from the group.

“I was so embarrassed,” she said. 

The alleged identity theft and his public “gaslighting” campaign was the last straw, Pietras said.

She threatened to go to her boss — or to the police — unless he stopped raping attacking her, the suit states.

Sabando allegedly laughed at her, saying “‘this is all your fault. What are you talking about?” Pietras claimed.

Two days later, on Oct. 15, Pietras’ supervisor approached her on the factory floor riding a mini-scooter and fired her without stating a reason, the complaint alleges.

She tried to explain what was going on with Sabando — even showing her bosses graphic images of his genitalia that he frequently sent unsolicited — but they told her to leave and never come back, not even to pick up her last paycheck, according to the suit.

Days later, Sabando allegedly emailed her to say, in his trademark poorly auto-translated Polish, “why did you tell them? Why did you show them my photos?” Pietras said.

She added that as far as she knows, Sabando still works at the factory.

Pietras’ lawyer, Nicole Brenecki, partner at the Jodré Brenecki, LLP law firm, said factory supervisors have refused to even mail the check to her office, one of the many civil claims contained in the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.

“It is unacceptable that large corporations continue to victimize marginalized individuals such as our client in an effort to increase profitability,” Brenecki said in a statement.

“It is all the more discouraging that such corporations would permit unspeakable acts of sexual violence and discrimination to occur against multiple female employees within their workplace.”

Sabando and French Connection couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

In addition to the civil suit, Pietras said she has met with detectives from the NYPD’s Queens Special Victims Unit, and is currently compiling evidence for a criminal complaint. 

“The harm was on so many, many different aspects of my life, it was not just physical,” Pietras told The Post. 

“I don’t want any other woman there to experience this again.”

Additional reporting by Steven Vago