Robert De Niro's company, Canal Productions, filed a lawsuit Saturday against a former employee asking for $6 million for allegedly "breaching her fiduciary duties."
The employee allegedly charged hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal expenses on the company card, transferred millions of company frequent flyer miles to her own account and spent hours of work time binge-watching Netflix, among other allegations in the lawsuit seen by NBC News.
The company is suing Graham Chase Robinson, its former vice president of production & finance, for "breaching her fiduciary duties, violation of the faithless service doctrine and conversion," according the complaint filed in New York. Robinson was promoted to her position around 2017, which included the task of assuring employees weren't misusing company funds per De Niro's own request, according to the lawsuit.
"Robinson's position required Mr. De Niro to place full faith, trust and confidence in her that she would carry out her duties and responsibilities in Canal's best interests, mindfully overseeing the finances and other employees," the lawsuit said.
But Robinson allegedly charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses on Canal's American Express card, improperly used the company's petty cash fund to pay for personal items, submitted false information in order to be paid for 96 days of "unused" vacation time, and spent company time "binge-watching astounding hours of TV shows on Netflix."
"For example, over the 4-day period between Tuesday, January 8 and Friday, January 11, 2019, 55 episodes of 'Friends' were accessed (which carried over to an impressive 32 episodes on Saturday, January 12 alone)," the lawsuit said.