A new report from Kotaku has shared more stories coming out from the studios of Rockstar Games. This time multiple former Rockstar Games employees have allegedly told stories of sexual assault, and how the frat-like mentalities occur over at the workplace with trips to the strip clubs, and alleged abuse of workers by former top executive Jeronimo Barrera along with others.
The report which was written by Jason Schreier of Kotaku says that Barrera was a top executive when he had “a reputation for screaming at people and firing off people that rubbed him the wrong way.”
In the report, Kotaku talks to a former employee Colin Bundschu who alleges that shortly after he started over at Rockstar, “Barrera groped him and asked him to sit on his lap and rubbed his inner thigh area.” The report also confirms that the events took place in 2014 and have been brought to light for the first time. Bundschu claims that he had filed a report to Rockstar’s HR department and told at least four other people of the incident.
Following the filing of the report to HR, an investigation was launched that involved speaking to Barrera and others present and followed a dispute over whether Barrera had denied the accusation or told Rockstar he didn’t remember. The company ultimately found Bundschu’s account to be unsubstantiated. Bundschu left Rockstar a few months after that and eventually exited the video game industry. The incident was also written in a book that Bundschu’s self-published on Amazon in 2017. However, he used pseudonyms for Barrera and everyone else that was involved.
Bundschu hopes that bringing the events of that night and the days afterward after four and a half years will help prevent further incidents from happening again.
On the other hand, Kotaku tried to reach Barrera, who had left the company in 2018 after two decades. Barrera has denied these allegations and later sent a statement through his attorney, Robert Tracy, saying that Barrera again denies the allegations and stands by his statement.
They also tried to talk to Rockstar, where both Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive provided the following statement,
We take these matters extremely seriously. While we do not comment publicly on the specifics of individual investigations, in any case where an employee raises workplace concerns, we investigate them and take appropriate action.
The report goes on further to explain more accounts from other anonymous Rockstar Games employees that are both currently working and are no longer working at the company.
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