A former corporate controller of a Mount Vernon business claims that he involuntarily resigned from the company because the owner was harassing him for refusing to conceal financial and regulatory irregularities.
George Petre accused Ice Air LLC and CEO Fredric Nadel of retaliation and religious discrimination, in a complaint filed on Dec. 12 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
When Petre “refused to conceal these matters from the company’s auditors and lenders,” the complaint states, “Nadel became increasingly hostile and retaliatory.”
Ice Air makes electric heat pumps for heating and air conditioning systems. Nadel, of Westport, Connecticut, founded the business in 2004.
Petre, who lives in Greenville near Scarsdale, joined Ice Air in 2022 as the corporate controller. He claims he played an instrumental role in securing a $17.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for making geothermal heat pumps at a new factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
He says Nadel praised his work and gave him performance bonuses. But in 2023 Nadel allegedly began to ridicule him for his religious beliefs.
Petre describes himself as a devout Romanian Orthodox Christian who kept icons on his desk of the Virgin Mary and Romanian Orthodox monk Arsenie Papaioc.
Nadel mocked the religious icons, as well as Petre’s beliefs and national heritage, the complaint states, for example, depicting Romanians as gypsies who steal chickens, then kill them to make soup.
Petre connects the purported hostility to his alleged discovery of financial and regulatory violations. He claims that Ice Air concealed more than $4 million in liabilities owed to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for tariff violations; used corporate funds to buy a $150,000 BMW for Nadel, without proper tax reporting; and failed to disclose U.S. Department of Energy fines for non-compliant HVAC equipment.
Petre alleges that Nadel demanded that he falsify financial statements so as not to jeopardize federal funding for the South Carolina factory.
Nadel yelled at Petre in front of colleagues and consultants and created a work environment that was so toxic that Petre feared for his safety, according to the complaint. He resigned in May 2024, sought mental health treatment, and was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Petre is accusing Nadel and Ice Air of religious discrimination, national origin discrimination, retaliation, creating a hostile work environment, and compelling him to resign, under federal and state civil rights laws.
He is demanding compensation for emotional distress and for lost pay, future pay and benefits; reinstatement to his former position; and punitive damages for “willful, malicious and reckless” civil rights violations.
