A luxurious residential dealer within the Hamptons is accusing her former employers of being pregnant and intercourse discrimination.
Ashley McDermott accused her former employers — Bespoke, Parallel, and Cody Vichinsky — of being pregnant and intercourse discrimination in a lawsuit within the Supreme Courtroom of the State of New York, County of Suffolk.
McDermott, who labored for Bespoke from 2018 to 2025 earlier than joining the Terry Cohen team at Compass, claims that the corporate sidelined and demoted her weeks after telling administration she was pregnant in April final yr.
The criticism particulars McDermott’s claims towards Bespoke, Parallel — a separate entity created in 2023 to deal with offers with gross sales costs beneath $10 million — and Vichinsky, the founding accomplice and president of each corporations, of discrimination on the bases of being pregnant and intercourse in violation of the New York State Human Rights Legislation.
She is in search of an unspecified quantity in again pay, entrance pay, curiosity on misplaced wages and commissions, and compensatory damages.
In an announcement, the corporations and Vichinsky mentioned they “categorically deny the allegations and any suggestion that they replicate the corporate’s therapy of its staff.”
“We stay assured that the info will finally converse for themselves and can tackle this matter by means of the authorized course of fairly than by means of the media,” the assertion added.
The plaintiff was promoted to Bespoke’s “Company Group” in January 2024, the place she labored on high-profile offers. In 2024, she claims within the submitting, she earned $157,000, with greater than $82,000 coming from commissions.
McDermott grew to become pregnant in December 2024 and disclosed it to Vichinsky on April 9, 2025. In the identical dialog, McDermott alleges, Vichinsky mentioned that she wouldn’t be capable to proceed to work on the “Company Group” and that “you’re not going to need to be working as arduous when you have got a child.”
Shortly after, in response to the criticism, McDermott was changed on the “Company Group” by Devrim Kucuk, “a male worker … who was not pregnant.”
McDermott was supplied a brand new job with Bespoke’s property administration workplace, which meant a $10,000 wage lower and no alternative to earn commissions. Bespoke Vice President of Finance Kaitlyn Magro went by means of McDermott’s laptop computer and cellphone on Might 19, 2025, and deleted all shopper contacts and correspondence, she claims within the lawsuit, embarrassing and humiliating the dealer.
McDermott declined and knowledgeable Bespoke in late Might that she would go away the corporate, in response to the criticism. In early June, she accepted the provide to hitch Terry Cohen, who was transferring from Hedgerow to Compass.
A spokesperson for the brokerage cited “reliable enterprise issues unrelated to being pregnant” for the employment change McDermott described within the criticism, including that in the identical interval, “a number of staff and supervisors have been themselves pregnant, and continued to work and advance professionally throughout and after being pregnant.”
Vichinsky, who based Bespoke in 2014 together with his brother Zach Vichinsky, was the highest-selling Hamptons broker in The Actual Deal’s rating of the market’s residential brokers in 2025. He claimed 30 offers for a complete of greater than $443 million in gross sales quantity to cap off his third yr within the prime spot.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., attorneys for McDermott, declined to remark.
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