The OSMARI Project
OSMARI is a men's activewear and swimwear brand focusing on the male aesthetic physique. This is a podcast for gay and straight men, and everything else in between talking about all kinds of topics including fashion, men's health and fitness, lifestyle, as well as some unfiltered conversations with our models and collaborators. Also, I'll be talking about my workplace discrimination lawsuit based on National Origin and Sexual Orientation that has been filed with Fairfax County Circuit Court.
The OSMARI Project
In the Trenches of a Discrimination Legal Saga against KG&P Strategies (MVM, KACE, TPG, evolve24) - The OSMARI Project
Navigating the stormy seas of a legal battle, I, Arian, share an illuminating update on my discrimination lawsuit against KG&P Strategies (MVM Inc, KACE Company, The Providencia Group, evolve24) and the recent breakthroughs that have shed a hopeful light on the horizon. As I peel back the curtain on my personal ordeal with workplace prejudice, you'll hear about the pivotal moment when the opposition's written acknowledgment of a pretext for my termination bolstered my resolve. With every saved email and meticulous record, the significance of preserving evidence becomes increasingly clear, proving indispensable in the face of pressing deadlines and strategic legal maneuvers. This journey isn’t just about my story—it's a beacon for anyone fighting for justice in the face of adversity.
Amidst the legal updates, The OSMARI Project continues to grow, weaving my narrative into the broader tapestry of media discourse. I take a moment to reveal the strains the lawsuit has placed on my life, the steps I've taken to fortify my resilience—like my new fitness regime with Craig Adams—and the sobering reflection on the response from advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign. As the episode draws to a close with a heartfelt weekend wish, I invite you to join me in embracing the seasonal shift and the promise of brighter days ahead.
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OSMARI Store: https://osmari.com
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Hey there everybody. I'm Aryan, the owner of Asmari, and welcome to the Asmari Project and day 422 of my Gay and Afghan Workplace Discrimination Lawsuit. So I won't repeat myself, but in the last two videos regarding the discrimination lawsuit, I gave the timeline of events as well as the complaint that I filed with my attorney back in January 8th of 2024, attorney back in January 8th of 2024. And it was only until late March, march 27th to be exact that we finally got a response. The opposing side's counsel wanted to file or give a waiver of service motion or something for each of the defendants, but I finally, after 13 months or something for each of the defendants, but I finally, after 13 months, got a response as to why I was terminated. And you know it was exactly what I described because I intentionally failed to mention a person's name with respect to team updates. That goes to the entire organization and they confirmed that. You know it took 13 months to get that response in writing, to just get that single line and writing, which I'm so grateful for. I mean, finally we have it in writing. But also they omitted the fact that he was reassigned to another team, even when I would give a compliment or something like that HR. They try to use that compliment against me, so I wasn't going to give any positive or negative mentions, with respect for that reason. But also, he was no longer my responsibility. He was moved to another team organizations.
Speaker 1:When they terminate people illegally and if it's for discrimination, they they are not. They are not going to specify the fact that I was gay or Afghan or whatever. They will try to legitimize a reason as to why they would terminate someone and that's called a pretext. And you have to forgive me, I'm not a lawyer, so this isn't legal advice whatsoever. This is from my own research, from what I've gathered over the last 14 months, and you can see that, as this case goes on, it's daily on my mind, but I wanted to give you updates when I was good and ready and had something. And this is one piece of advice I could give to anybody, anybody who works in the professional world If you are able to have your work emails received on your personal phone, do it.
Speaker 1:Do it. Do it for your safety, do it for whatever reason you can think of. If you're able to do it from a technological standpoint, do it. The reason why I did it is because, well, first of all, I never expected anything like this happened to me. But I don't like unread messages. I don't like unread text messages, emails, slack messages, team messages. I don't like anything unread. I read everything and I try to respond as soon as possible and my response times are actually pretty good. I usually respond to an email depending on the length of it, usually respond to an email, depending on the length of it, within 15 minutes. So I've always kept that mentality to stay on top of my work and you know I was always pretty good at my job. But that's one piece of advice I can give you and I'll tell you because I did that.
Speaker 1:I was able to retain a lot of evidence that's pertinent to my case and have provided my attorney as such. We are tasked to give them a response to their response by April 26th, and this is through an order of a calendar control judge. This is a judge who actually schedules deadlines for motions or filings and so on and so forth so that everything can move in a timely manner. We gave the opposing counsel plenty of opportunities to respond. We've actually given him extensions to the demand letter but we received no response. We filed the lawsuit on January 8th. He only returned our waiver of service motions for each of the individuals, like in mid to late March, and then we got the response in March 27th, which is almost 60 days after the fact that they were to respond. You know, now this guy on the defense side, he's asking us, you know, to give him favors, to do favors for him. Him, we've tried, out of professional courtesy and out of respect for the law, you know, to ensure that everything is fair and equal and we remain cordial, that we remain, you know, respectful and timely and so on and so forth, and we gave every opportunity for the defense counsel to respond, gave him leeway on certain deadlines that we set for him through emails and correspondence prior to me filing the lawsuit, and we were very, very flexible.
Speaker 1:But now I think it's important to ensure and if any of you are going through this, to ensure that you have some sort of she needs to do on my behalf. So April 26th we are going to file a response with the evidence that I had in my phone, luckily, and the emails that support my claims luckily, and the emails that support my claims. But also they're trying to have a motion of dismissal on various administrative items. They had nothing to negate anything about my complaint. They didn't even specify whether it's true or false or whatever and for the purposes of that motion they decided to not even address it. But they decided to address certain administrative items and trying to dismiss my case on that matter and my lawyer is confident that most of them will not be fulfilled. There is potentially some issues with some of my claims but again, I had four claims but we're going to address them. Review the books and the law in Virginia. We remember we filed with the state of Virginia and I'll get into that later as opposed to going federal. But we have until April 26 to have our response. We'll provide that and then our hearing for that motion of dismissal is on May the 10th. The opposing counsel wanted us to have our motion done by our response done by April the 12th. The guy had we gave him an extra two weeks on the demand letter. He had 60 days on their response. They had over a year.
Speaker 1:When I first mentioned that I will be, you know, pursuing this matter, I think they felt that I was bluffing. I don't bluff and I don't lie. So I gave them every opportunity. I did everything that I could on my end to ensure that they had enough notice. I went through the process of going through the EEOC. In the middle of March I filed my inquiry with the EEOC and then I couldn't get an intake interview until July the 6th, because I'm outside of Washington DC so they're plenty busy. I got my right to sue from the EEOC on July 26th, two days after my birthday On my birthday last year actually, I was given a charge of discrimination and they sent that to the company. But I did get my right to sue letter and then interviewed attorneys and I actually also sent a notice, some sort of notice to sue or notice of intent to sue. I sent them that letter as well in, I believe, august or sometime around there, a notice of intent to sue.
Speaker 1:So I was following every administrative task that I could, as well as even not pursuing this, even just simply. You know keeping things civil. You know I'd like to discuss the conditions of my termination and you know I'm very reasonable, I'm very, very logical and if something doesn't make sense, you know it isn't true. I didn't want to go this route for many reasons, which I also stated in previous videos, but you know this is where we are right now. It is what it is and thankfully, right now I'm finally seeing movement. What we're going to do I'm going to meet with my attorney within the next week or so to talk about our response to their response.
Speaker 1:What's very, very interesting to me is the fact that also, you know, there are individuals that are participants in this particular issue. One was my former supervisor and one was an HR person. What I found very, very interesting, as I had communications with the organization after my termination, I included their bosses, you know, the CEO of the big parent company which manages all the four sub companies and I think they're number two. They're number one and number two for the entire organization. What I found interesting is that my former boss, after four years of not receiving recommendations on LinkedIn, the week the same week that I mentioned requesting documents, also my intent to file a workplace discrimination claim, she received four recommendations or she requested four recommendations, I don't know, but I think it's quite coincidental that she received recommendations on LinkedIn, you know, over the course of the few weeks after the middle of March when I mentioned my intent to pursue this matter in a legal forum. Also, what I found interesting is that she left, for whatever reason, in April, sometime in April. I don't know what the reason is, but she left sometime in April. I get that that can happen. I find it also coincidental that the HR person that was directly involved in my particular matter also left on April. Again, there are too many coincidences with respect to that. So there are all these little things that we have to dig deep into and I'm going to ensure that we find the root causes of everything and anything that's pertinent to my lawsuit. But I find these items quite interesting coincidences and I'm not big on coincidences.
Speaker 1:Now, some of you may have seen that. You know I've mentioned that my lawsuit is over a million dollars. I'll explain why that is so. My salary I was a VP. My salary was over 200K. I won't get into any more detail than that.
Speaker 1:Under Virginia law and based on the circumstances as to my termination, I'm able to potentially get up to $350,000 in punitive damages, and this is because of retaliation, but also a pattern of behavior that has been exhibited by my former employer over the last few years. Compensatory damages actually, because of the Virginia Values Act, I think there is no limit on the compensatory damages, but we asked for $250,000. We're suing for the wages that I lost because of this termination, but also compensatory damages and punitive damages and reasonable attorney's fees, interest and penalties, so on and so forth, and it's for that reason that my lawsuit is now valued over $1 million. That's the reason and I wanted to explain that. I don't want people to think that you know a discrimination lawsuit, anybody can get a seven-figure settlement or verdict or whatever. This is not the case. It's dependent on damages and the various circumstances that surround a discrimination case. So we sent these items in a demand letter that we sent back in November and also now we're pursuing going full force to whatever the jury decides. Whatever the jury decides, of course, if we get to trial, whatever the jury decides, the jury decides, you know. Whatever the jury decides, of course, if we get to trial, you know, whatever the jury decides, the jury decides Win, lose. You know to me, I fought.
Speaker 1:I'm very, very thankful for my attorney. You know I interviewed like eight to ten attorneys and half of them were willing to take my case, which is pretty good. I picked an attorney this attorney for many, many reasons. She's a no BS kind of gal and our personalities mesh and I think that's very, very important, that she is receptive to what I'm saying as well as knowing what I expect. But you know she also knows that I'm a very reasonable person, that you know I'm not going to go crazy or anything like that with respect to facts and timelines or or any of the sort, because you know she's working on other cases too. I'm not the only client that she has. So you know I try to respect her time as much as possible and, you know, trying to ensure that we follow the calendar dates that are set for my lawsuit, but we're proceeding accordingly. I'm just so happy, though, that there's finally movement on my case.
Speaker 1:I also wanted to tell you guys that I redesigned the Asmari website. Asmari is a men's clothing line. I focus primarily on activewear and swimwear. It's a fairly small brand, but I focus on shorter shorts and swim briefs. I just recently redesigned that site and released it two weeks ago. If you guys want to take a look at that, feel free to. I'm going to actually show you. You know, right now you can probably see a video of me scrolling through the various pages, but one major change in this website is, you know, as I'm doing these collaborations and these interviews and these talks and remote try-on halls and so on.
Speaker 1:I decided to also create a separate page for the Asmari Project. Also, some blogs, vlogs, whatever talk about me, talk about my brand. But I also created one specific page for my current workplace discrimination lawsuit. There is a page dedicated to it on my website. If you go under stories in the top menu and you see blogs, vlogs and more. You scroll down to that, you'll see a sub menu with workplace discrimination lawsuit. You can click on that and you can see all the details that I've posted thus far. You know at least summarizing the lawsuit in question that I've posted thus far.
Speaker 1:You know at least summarizing the lawsuit in question, as well as explicitly giving the names of the key players that are involved in my lawsuit their faces, their names, their titles, their pictures. You know their titles at the time and the organizations you know that they were working for at the time of my discrimination have been listed. I gave links to their LinkedIn profiles that may change only because they want their privacy maintained. Again, I recorded a video where I explicitly set names, but somebody reported my video because they didn't want their privacy invaded. Well, that's too bad. I have a website Now. Their names and pictures are explicitly on it. If you search, you know their names as well as the letters K, g and P. With that and percent sign between the G and the P and their name, they'll pop right up. Also, evolve24, you know, they'll pop right up. So I'm still working on some SEO bugs.
Speaker 1:Today I actually got permission from my attorney to since my case is now public record, I'm going to start posting the documents and the motions and all that stuff on my website, along with the timeline. I'm going to figure the right way to make it pretty and easily accessible to you all. Make it pretty and easily accessible to you all. But I'm going to ensure that I give all the relevant information and documents as needed so you guys can see for yourself what this is like. Again, this is day 422 of a workplace discrimination lawsuit and we're just in the beginning aspects of it.
Speaker 1:It's a time-consuming process. It's a little bit tedious, but you just have to go with the flow, take deep breaths. It's very, very stressful on me and I'm pretty tough, but it's very, very stressful on me If I can help somebody who is potentially in a similar situation, no matter what protected class that you're in, the law is the law, no matter what protected class you are in. If you feel that you have been discriminated against for some BS, it's very, very important for you to talk to an attorney, know your rights, know how to proceed, but don't expect it to be easy peasy. It can potentially be very, very time consuming and difficult and a lot of stress.
Speaker 1:You know, in the last podcast I interviewed a guy named Craig Adams who is a personal trainer and you know I started doing a collaboration with him. You know he's been giving me a workout program, a diet, everything like that. I just started it a little less than two weeks ago and it's pretty strict, but it's given me something to look forward to in the future to just keep me going, to keep me active, to keep somewhat sane and somewhat motivated. I'm doing what I can and luckily I have a. You know my mother is a great support system where we are doing what we can to survive. You know I'm the one who's supposed to be taking care of her and it's sad that you know I'm not able to do that as much right now. Um, but you know we're we're doing the best that we can with um, uh, with helping each other out and and she's been fantastic Um, but you know, I've been working on this training program with with Craig and he's been great, very receptive, uh, responsive to my questions. Um, you know I I bullshit with receptive, responsive to my questions. You know I bullshit with him from time to time too. So he's a great guy and very, very knowledgeable and I ask as many questions as I can.
Speaker 1:And you know one of the things that we talked about, testosterone, um, and you know I started um taking uh, clomid and and uh and an estrogen blocker. I'll talk about that another time, not for this video, but uh, you know I've been, I've been doing what I can to maintain my health, uh, you know, to keep my um, my mental capacity up to par, um and and uh taking vitamins in the morning. At night I got one of those ridiculous pill organizers, you know um, so that's when you know you really get old um uh for for vitamins. So I'm I'm doing what I can dieting, exercising every day, um, you know, looking at my Fitbit statistics and and and doing what I can to maintain my sanity as I go through this process and this lawsuit, not to knock the human rights campaign because I believe you know they have a good mission overall, mission overall. But I reached out to them in November or December, I forget when exactly. I have the email somewhere about my lawsuit and I've been following them and following their posts and it seems their primary focus right now is for the trans community, which is fine. I mean, they're their own organization, they can do what I want, but they can do what they want. But you know, when they keep referencing LGBTQ, the G in there, you know, is still in there.
Speaker 1:I think them just simply giving me a form to fill out and then not responding after that was a great disservice and anecdotally, I can say you know, to me it seems like the gays don't matter anymore. But I'll just leave it at that. But I'm disappointed in their lack of response to this particular issue. But you know, that's okay. I just thought I'd bring it up just so that you guys can talk about it. But I think it's very, very important to call that sort of thing out because you know these lawsuits are still happening. You know, luckily there are laws in place, but you don't know how it's going to turn up or how it's going to turn out. So I think it's very, very sad that you know, after three months, no response and me just simply filling out a form regarding my situation. You know, nothing's come out of it and that's fine, that's done over with.
Speaker 1:I was looking at every avenue I came to to to get my story out. So you know, I'm going to do it myself, with the help of my lawyer, um, and and we'll proceed accordingly. Pertaining to the brand uh, I did do an interview about three weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to edit it yet because of the response and everything of the sort pertaining to my lawsuit. So there is a video that's going to come out soon. I just have to edit it.
Speaker 1:I have another interview tomorrow and another interview on Wednesday. The interview on Wednesday is with the same model I interviewed a few weeks back, but I also sent him some stuff, so that may be an opportunity for a try-on haul. And tomorrow I have I'll keep that a secret for now, but he's an interesting character and I found him through a friend actually, and I think it would be a very, very interesting conversation and and something pleasing to the eye that you guys would would probably enjoy, uh, rather than seeing me all the time. Uh, that's for sure. But, uh, but, uh, yeah, those those are, those are still happening.
Speaker 1:Um, I'll, I'll keep you posted, um, on my, my workouts and such. I'll eventually start making videos of my workouts I'm doing at the gym with my friend Bruce and hopefully he'll be nice enough to record some of the workouts I've been doing. But also, after the three months are up, for, uh, collaboration, we'll see where I'm at. Um, we'll see the. You'll see the before and after pictures, the before pictures. Oh god, I I'm scared to even show it. It's, it's terrible, but, um, you know I'm not, it's not terrible, but you know what I'm saying. Uh, just, I just, uh, hope I do. Well, I just make sure I keep eating when I'm supposed to eat and when and exercise when I need to. I actually have to do an ab workout after I finish recording this.
Speaker 1:If you guys have any questions or concerns or comments with respect to the process of the workplace discrimination lawsuit or what I've been through, again, I'm not an attorney, but I can only give you my experience as to being on the plaintiff's side as I'm doing it. Again, I'm not an attorney, but I can only give you my experience as to being on the plaintiff's side. As I'm doing it. I'm going to do like the I hate to say it the Dylan Mulvaney thing with the Days of Girlhood thing, but I'm going to do the Days of the Workplace Discrimination lawsuit. I don't know, maybe you guys can figure out a title for me, but this is day 422. So hopefully after May the 10th, after that hearing, I'll be able to give you some updates as to what we're doing, how we're proceeding, so on and so forth, and what it's going to be like.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to get to discovery. Discovery is the phase where we can ask for certain pieces of information that I know exists, the information that I don't have. I have anything that's pertaining to me, me directly from my emails and my calendar. So I have certain pieces of information and evidence pertaining to that, but there's more. Again, the story is it's a very, very big sphere of knowledge and I'm just trying to get to discovery of the point where I can ask for certain things between certain dates and items that I know exist and we'll proceed accordingly.
Speaker 1:Just remember that. You know, if you're going through this Judge, judy says something. If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a good memory. I actually do have a good memory, but I'm telling the truth. But I think you know when things don't make sense they're not true. And as long as you're, if you're a plaintiff, as long as you tell the truth, you know you're going to be fine. Don't dilly-dally with your attorney, don't try to hide anything. I have nothing to hide, you know. So I'm not too worried about that, and it's funny that every time that I've either asked for something or they've asked for something, they've omitted certain facts, which is fine. That just gives us the opportunity to present the facts, and I'm really looking forward to that. So, again, if you have any questions or comments pertaining to the process, feel free to reach out.
Speaker 1:Check out the new website, wwwasmaricom, explore it, see all the photos, the videos, the blogs, the vlogs, my story, the brand story, as well as the special page dedicated to the Asmari project, as well as the page for the workplace discrimination lawsuit, as well as the details of the individuals, which I cannot mention here, but I think I'll give like a special code or something like that. Name them with a, an initial or something like that. I don't know. Know, but you know they're on my website now and they can't block me from posting well, not posting, but sharing publicly shared photos on social media or found through Google, as well as their name and their position as it pertains to my lawsuit. Google as well as their name and their position as it pertains to my lawsuit, since now it's all public record. So with that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you all go. Feel free to reach out.
Speaker 1:I like subscribe to this video if you want to, if you want to Hear the progress of my case. But I'm just so happy it's finally moving and I got at least two things that I I wanted. I can't, I don't want to again give too much information there, but I finally got a response, the responses that I wanted, which now help us to proceed strategically in my lawsuit. So I thank you all for your support and I hope to share this journey with you and hopefully, you know somebody, or at least one person, will get something out of these videos. Just just let me know what you want to see, what you want to hear Pertaining to my lawsuit. I'll be, I'll be happy to discuss it as much as I can. I'll also try to get my attorney on one of my recordings.
Speaker 1:So I wish you all a fantastic weekend. It's the 13th April 13th, so have a fantastic weekend. Looks like the weather here in the mid-Atlantic is starting to turn. Finally, and just enjoy it as much as you can, and I'll see you all on the next one. Cheers.