Annalisa Crevers, an award-winning journalist and former morning news anchor for News12 in Connecticut and New Jersey, has made disturbing allegations against her former network. Clevers claims that after demanding better pay and equity, she faced intense backlash from her employer, eventually spiraling into mental illness and being placed on suicide watch. Mr. Clevers, who was making $71,000 at the time, had been approached about a new contract with improved compensation. However, she claims that her boss’s attitude towards this simple request suddenly changed dramatically, causing a downward spiral that severely affected her mental health.
“What management did to me changed my life forever. I almost lost my life. My children almost lost their mother. My entire world fell apart. “I felt like I was going,” she told the New York Post.
According to Clevers, the situation escalated into long-term workplace abuse. She alleges that her supervisor engaged in gaslighting tactics and intentionally made her doubt her own self-knowledge and sanity. Additionally, Ms. Clevers claims she was excluded from important meetings and subjected to increasingly demanding and humiliating work. She recalls that one particularly humiliating task was being forced to correct a co-anchor’s typos.
Clevers, a 42-year-old mother of three, got off to a strong start at News 12 when she was hired in April 2018. Her boss praised her intelligence and work ethic, even calling her the “sunshine of the newsroom.” During the pandemic, Clevers has assumed significant responsibilities, often being one of only two employees in the building. She was in charge of everything from her own work to making sure the cameras, lights and teleprompters were working, and even interviewed then-Gov. Cuomo’s daily press conference. For her efforts, she earned a $4,200 bonus and additional praise from her boss.
However, she soon discovered that her co-workers were receiving significantly larger bonuses, some receiving double the amount she received. When she expressed her concerns to her manager, she claimed that her career at the station began to decline, as detailed in her claim.
“I felt humiliated. I was alienated from the rest of the news team. Management started blaming me for technical issues that I had no control over. “He did everything we asked of him and more,” she added. I felt like my contract and raise were on my mind and that management was trying to get me to quit and that they had treated me badly for what they had done to me,” she said.
After filing a formal complaint, Clevers decided to resign. However, News 12, which is owned by Altice USA, refused to accept her resignation. The company effectively withheld her resignation, claiming it had a duty to investigate her complaint.
“Everything sent me into a spiral. It was too much. On Friday, May 13, 2022, I became seriously ill. I became psychotic and suicidal. All this It happened in front of my husband and children and even in front of me, “sister,” Clevers said. Her husband, Eric, said: “She was almost catatonic, staring into space and moving around the house inexplicably.”
Her husband said she grabbed her car keys and tried to head to the garage, but doctors later confirmed this was a suicide attempt. As a result, she spent six days in a psychiatric ward on suicide watch. Her struggle continued after her hospitalization, as Altice USA terminated her employment while she was on disability.
A spokesperson for Altice USA said, “News 12 takes pride in providing an inclusive and fair workplace where our employees can grow and are compensated based on their skills, contributions, and accomplishments. Allegations of discrimination are completely baseless and we will vigorously defend them.” . ”
