First she was "too ghetto" to work at the hot-n-heavy Hawaiian Tropic Zone, where boobtastic babes strut their stuff in bikinis while serving patrons in Times Square. Then she says managers rejected her because she didn't "speak white."
So what's a voluptuous 22-year-old to do? Melody Morales filed a lawsuit.
And now she's being called a hooker.
Morales' mug appears on "very filthy," "unacceptable" and "improper" Web sites, some of which advertise erotic services, James Rosenzweig, a lawyer for the restaurant, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner yesterday.
Wait a tick, Lehner said. "You're not suggesting she's a prostitute, are you?"
"Potentially, that might be the case," Rosenzweig responded.
The Latina bombshell opted to take Hawaiian Tropic Zone to court after the restaurant didn't give her the opportunity to audition for her "dream job," according to The New York Post. She said managers cast her off because of her "Latin accent" and "ghetto" style.
While Morales wasn't in court to stand up in her defense on Friday, her lawyer was there to clear the air.
"Your honor, she's not a prostitute," Derek Smith told the judge, according to The New York Daily News. Some of the photos were lifted from her personal Web site and plastered on escort-service pages without her OK, he said.
"She has only one Web site and that's on MySpace," Smith argued, saying that all Morales wanted was a job where she could show off her blazing body and that she has never earned any money from selling sex, reports the Daily News.
Morales, an ex-Hooters waitress with a 34-D cup size, charges Hawaiian Tropic Zone with discriminating against her because of her accent, according to the paper. She says she showed up twice in search of employment and twice was turned away.
Forty percent of the restaurant's work force is Latino, its lawyer retorted quickly. Employers have the prerogative to not hire inarticulate speakers, who are not a class protected by discrimination laws, Rosenzweig argued.
"This is a job for a saleswoman," he added. "An employer is entitled to decide what kind of people they want to present."
And Judge Lehner is apparently interested in seeing exactly what kind of people these are. While he hadn't decided on whether to discard the lawsuit, the 76-year-old arbitrator did ask for directions to the restaurant, which calls itself the "Hottest Place on Earth."
"How do I get there?" he asked. "What's the address?"
Hawaiian Tropic Zone reopened last month after being closed for renovations, which had been prompted by an onslaught of bad press following several sexual-harassment lawsuits filed by former employees, according to the Daily News.
