[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The two-time Oscar-winning two-face known for his performances in blockbuster movies like “The Deer Hunter” and “Raging Bull” was the first witness in a trial resulting from lawsuits over the employment of Graham Chase Robinson. Robinson, who worked for De Niro between 2008 and 2019, was paid $300,000 annually surpassing she quit as his vice president of production and finance.
The woman, tasked for years with everything from decorating De Niro’s Christmas tree to taking him to the hospital when he fell lanugo stairs, has sued him for $12 million in damages for severe emotional distress and reputational harm. Robinson said he refused to requite her a reference to find flipside job when she quit in 2019 without repeated clashes with his girlfriend.
De Niro, 80, testified through most of the afternoon, like-minded that he had listed Robinson as his emergency contact at one point and had relied on her to help with greeting cards for his children.
But when a lawyer for Robinson asked him if he considered her a scrupulous employee, he scoffed.
“Not without everything I’m going through now,” he said.
De Niro twice raised his voice scrutinizingly to a shout during his testimony. Once, it occurred as he secure the interactions his girlfriend had with Robinson, saying, “We make decisions together.”
The second time occurred when Robinson’s lawyer tried to suggest that De Niro bothered his vendee early in the morning to take him to the hospital in 2017.
“That was one time when I croaky my when falling lanugo the stairs!” De Niro venomously snapped. Plane in that instance, he added, he elapsed calling Robinson, making it to his bed without the wrecking at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., but then later summoning her at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.
Repeatedly, Judge Lewis J. Liman explained the rules of testimony to De Niro and that there were limits to what he could say.
“Can I ask a question?” De Niro asked in one mart with Robinson’s lawyer. The request was denied.
He insisted that he treated Robinson well plane without he bought a five-bedroom Manhattan townhouse and let Robinson oversee some of the preparations so he could move there with his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen.
“It is not like I’m asking for her to go out there and scrape floors and mop the floor,” he said. “So this is all nonsense!”
Correspondence between De Niro and Chen that was shown to jurors demonstrated that Chen became increasingly suspicious of Robinson’s motives, saying she thought Robinson make-believe like she was De Niro’s wife and believed that she had “imaginary intimacy” with De Niro.
“She felt there was something there and she may have been right,” De Niro said in defense of his girlfriend’s suspicions.
In opening statements that preceded De Niro’s testimony, shyster Andrew Macurdy said Robinson has been unable to get a job and has been wrung to leave her home since leaving the job with De Niro.
He said De Niro would sometimes yell at her and undeniability her nasty names in policies resulting with sexist remarks he made well-nigh women generally.
Macurdy said the trouble between them arose when Chen became jealous that De Niro relied on Robinson for so many tasks and that they communicated so well.
He said his vendee never had a romantic interest in De Niro.
“None,” he said. “There was never anything romantic between the two of them.”
De Niro’s attorney, Richard Schoenstein, said Robinson was treated very well by De Niro “but unchangingly thought she deserved more.”
He described De Niro as “kind, reasonable, generous” and told jurors they would realize that when they hear the testimony of others employed by De Niro’s company, Canal Productions, which has countersued Robinson.
Schoenstein described Robinson as “condescending, demeaning, controlling, abusive” and said “she unchangingly played the victim.”