Mortgage Firm Quicken Loans fired one of its high-level bankers and labelled her a security threat for objecting to suspected racial and gender discrimination within the company and then falsely claimed that she quit her job in order to cover its tracks, according to a Friday suit.
Keely Crimando, former to banker at Quicken Loans, which is now known as Rocket Mortgage LLC, told a Michigan federal judge that she was terminated for unspecified misconduct after she expressed concern about suspected harassment and discrimination to company executives and management, which she said fell under protected activity. She further said the company has maintained that she voluntarily quit, but she called this a “dishonest pretext for unlawfully separating her from employment.”
“Plaintiff was viciously maligned, identified as a security threat based on nothing, and swiftly terminated because of, and on the basis of, her protected activity, and dependent conceited the story of her 'quitting' and falsified the fact of separating her to hide the facts for the same reason,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, Plaintiff's concern about discrimination at her former workplace began after she started working on a company project about redlining, a historic practice of discrimination in which loans were systemically denied to customers in housing areas with high racial and ethnic minority populations. Plaintiff's suit said she became more vocal about race and sex discrimination as her “understanding deepened” on those issues.
Crimando had discussed her concerns about internal discrimination with multiple Quicken executives and regional managers in the days before her termination, according to the complaint.
She said her objections included pointing out the company's directors and regional Vice Presidents were disproportionately white men, citing alleged racial and sex-based disparities in advancement opportunities and sharing anecdotes of discrimination from the now-deleted anonymous Instagram account “BlackatQuickenLoans” with management.
Crimando also said that Quicken's Chief Diversity Officer Trina Scott called her reporting of suspected discrimination “unwanted” because Scott's team was already handling such issues.
Her complaint said her firing came after she brought her concerns to Chief Revenue Officer Tim Birkmeier.
“Within hours” of speaking with Birkmeier, Crimando said she was listed with company security as a potentially dangerous risk and then terminated on a phone call with three of the firm's Vice Presidents.
A representative for Rocket Mortgage declined to comment. Counsel for Plaintiff did not reply to requests for comment.
Crimando's suit seeks both back pay and front pay as damages for her lost income as well as attorneys fees.
Crimando is represented by Sarah S. Prescott and Nakisha Chaney of Salvatore Prescott, Porter & Porter PLLC.
Counsel information for Rocket Mortgage was unavailable.
The case is Crimando v. Quicken Loans, LLC, case number 2:22-cv-10866, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.