A former nanny hit a Long Island couple yesterday with a federal lawsuit, claiming she was treated like a virtual slave and subjected to regular beatings and racial slurs. Cindy Carter, 31, portrayed Fontaine and Donald Sheridan as employers from hell, who paid her far below minimum wage for caring for their three children, and doing all the cooking and cleaning in their Massapequa Park home.
"Mrs. Sheridan would beat me and Mr. Sheridan would not do anything," Carter said yesterday at a news conference outside the midtown bank where Donald Sheridan works.
Carter, an undocumented immigrant from Barbados, claims she endured abuse for 2-1/2 years because Fontaine Sheridan threatened to have her deported if she complained. She was paid $300 a week.
In the lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Carter outlines numerous incidents in which Fontaine Sheridan allegedly slapped her and spewed racial epithets.
She contends the abuse started shortly after she began working for the couple in December 2002, and continued until she quit over a violent encounter this summer that led to assault charges against Fontaine Sheridan.
Carter claims that on July 6, Fontaine Sheridan caused her "permanent injuries" when she pushed her down the steps of her home.
The charge was reduced to a noncriminal violation and Sheridan was ordered to complete 50 hours of community service, take an anger-management class and pay for Carter's medical expenses.
The Sheridans' lawyer, Vincent Ansanelli, called Carter's lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, unfounded. He insisted Fontaine Sheridan never used racial slurs when speaking to Carter, who he said was paid $500 a week.
Ansanelli denied Carter's abuse charges, claiming the nanny was provided with "a warm, loving household in which she participated fully."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/364485p-310320c.html