Meta sued for hiring employee accused of stalking

A former Meta staffer who was placed on a “Do Not Hire” list after he stalked and harassed one of the company’s employees found himself rehired by the tech giant after it gutted its talent and recruitment department, a lawsuit filed Tuesday says. 

The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court on behalf of Meta employee James Napoli, accuses the company of violating New York City’s human rights law and negligence for hiring the person back. It also accuses the company of retaliation after it allegedly sidelined Napoli and took him off big projects when he raised concerns that the person had been rehired.

“I had spoken to my employer about this … on numerous occasions and I was told that he would not be able to enter our offices, that he would not be hired again, and then like, all of a sudden, this guy is reaching out to me [on Meta’s internal messaging system],” Napoli, a marketing leader who works out of Meta’s New York City office, told CNBC in an interview. “I trusted that my employer would be able to keep me safe, right? Because stalkers and harassers are also workplace hazards. … And this isn’t just a hazard for me, this is a dangerous individual that was let back into the workplace.” 

The lawsuit comes after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March 2023 that Meta would be reducing the size of its recruiting team as part of a larger strategy to cut 21,000 jobs, remove layers of middle management and operate more efficiently.

Although Wall Street has responded favorably to Meta’s cost-cutting plans, layoffs in the company’s customer service and trust and safety teams have made it harder for the social networking giant to respond to concerns from small businesses and influencers, as well as state and local election officials who use Facebook and Instagram, CNBC has previously reported.

In the aftermath of Meta’s cost-cutting efforts and ensuing layoffs, attorneys for Napoli say in the lawsuit that the company is relying “more heavily on hiring employees through outside contractors” and employs “far fewer recruiters to screen applicants,” which has negatively impacted their ability to properly catch red flags.

“Meta’s employment practices are apparently so chaotic, reckless, and ineffectual that the company fails to keep track of the most fundamental data point in its workplace – the dangerous people who pose a severe risk to Meta’s own employees,” the lawsuit, filed by attorneys Carrie Goldberg and Peter Romer-Friedman, states. “Yet Meta tells the public and public officials that the company has the ability to safeguard the personal data of billions of children and adults on their platforms.”

Meta has previously dealt with similar allegations that it’s employed workers who have engaged in stalking and related activity. For example, in 2018, the company said it fired a security engineer who allegedly used internal data to stalk women online.

Meta didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on the lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The person accused of stalking Napoli, identified only by the initials “G.F.” in the complaint, was a member of Meta’s marketing team before he was laid off in November 2022 when the company cut 13% of its staff as part of a larger restructuring. 

Before the layoffs, G.F. and Napoli occasionally saw each other in meetings but were no more than “work acquaintances,” Napoli said. After G.F. lost his job, he reached out to Napoli for support and asked him to get a coffee. During that meeting, the accused stalker started making “disturbing” comments, the filing states. 

“[He] told me that he hears voices, God talks to him, and God had been talking to him about me since April of that year, and he sent me a list of documents that were his like journal entries over the months,” Napoli recalled.

Napoli “immediately” reported the incident to his manager and to HR, and says at first he was concerned for G.F.’s well-being. But over the next year, Napoli says, the situation escalated. 

G.F. began sending Napoli up to 30 messages a day, contacting his family members and referencing Napoli’s partner, friends and even his dog, Luigi, in messages. 

“I am being mind tortured with an A.I tech which I don’t know where it’s coming from and I am feeling like my love for you is being used for experiences I didn’t agree for, while I am being told by spirits that you and I are the two messengers,” G.F. wrote in one message to Napoli, according to the complaint. 

G.F. found out where Napoli lived and “personally delivered a large ream of disturbing writings and drawings” to the apartment, forcing Napoli and his partner to move, the lawsuit says. 

“It really felt like I was drowning for a long time because there was just nothing that I could do to escape. … It was really terrifying,” said Napoli. “I was worried about going out, I was worried about my dog, I was worried about my partner, because they were all mentioned by this person.” 

Napoli reported G.F. to the police and considered getting a restraining order, but under New York state law orders of protection are only available to people who have an intimate or familial relationship to their stalker, the lawsuit states. 

In September 2023, Napoli informed Meta that the stalking had increased “in both frequency and severity,” and the HR department assured him that G.F. was on the company’s “Do Not Hire” list and its “No Entry” list, which identifies people who shouldn’t be permitted into company buildings.

But just four months later, the company hired G.F. back to a contractor position after he apparently slipped through the cracks in the hiring process, the lawsuit says. Napoli learned his accused stalker was back at Meta when G.F.’s name popped up on Workplace, the company’s internal messaging system. Napoli says he received a message from G.F. stating that he’d been rehired and would be seeing him at meetings and events. 

“To have all of that come back after I was guaranteed that I would be kept safe, it was really harrowing,” said Napoli. “I immediately went to [HR]… they let me know that they were equally stunned. They didn’t have an answer as to how it happened, and they let me know that they would investigate.” 

For the next month, Napoli says he “lived in terror of interacting with G.F. at work” until Meta notified him that G.F. had been terminated. However, after G.F. lost his job a second time, his “stalking and harassment of Mr. Napoli significantly amplified and became more creative, sexually violent, and obsessive,” the lawsuit states.

As Napoli grappled with the continued stalking, he also faced what the lawsuit says was retaliation at Meta for complaining to his managers and to HR about the decision to rehire G.F.

Napoli had been tapped to lead an artificial intelligence marketing push at Meta, but says that in response to his complaints, those projects were taken away and he found himself sidelined with reduced responsibilities. 

In his complaint, Napoli is asking for damages but didn’t specify an amount. He also asked the court to enter judgements that would prohibit G.F. from being rehired at Meta and prohibit the company from “engaging in any further discriminatory or retaliatory acts” against Napoli. 

“I want to be able to do my job, and I want to be able to do my job without feeling like the shoe is going to drop,” said Napoli. “I am very passionate about my work, and I take a lot of pride in my work, and that is really all I want to be able to do.” 

Napoli said he decided to tell his story because he wants Meta to make reforms that would prevent something like this from happening again. 

“It doesn’t seem to me as though there are the right processes in place to stop this from happening to … me or to someone else,” said Napoli. “Everybody deserves a safe workplace.”