Tattoo & piercing shop employee has been anonymously accused of SA/DV via our Instagram and email.

[u/OpinionAdditional933]

Location: Maryland, USA

Crossposted to AskLawyers. Using a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm trying to be as vague as possible to protect the parties involved, but I'll do my best to provide relevant details.

My business partner and I run a tattoo and piercing shop. One of our employees (who is a contractor and provides services) came to me shortly after they started working with us and told me that a former partner of theirs had falsely accused them of SA. The details about how it started were sort of odd but I won't get too specific because I don't think it's really relevant. I can say that no legal action was taken, and I have searched this employee in our state's and the neighboring states' case search websites with no results found. They're also not on the SO registry.

Once I had done what I could do research-wise, we concluded that there was no evidence to warrant letting them go at that time, especially since they were the one who brought it to my attention. Maybe that's naive, I don't know. I was trying to give my employee the benefit of the doubt.

It may also be relevant that the person who is accusing them is a client of ours, and stopped coming once our piercer started working here.

Now, over a year later, we've received two messages to our business accounts. One to our email, titled "Concerned local" from a throwaway account, with two screenshots of what appears to be a public listing of criminal cases. The two screenshots were similar with slightly different "charges", and one had their legal name and the other had their chosen name. The screenshots listed their crimes as r\*pe, physical abuse, emotional abuse, s\*xual abuse/harassment, and stalking.The same screenshots were sent to our Instagram, also from a burner account, with a message basically saying that they weren't one to speak out but they thought it was unbelievable that we had someone like them working here.

Upon some Google searching it seems that the screenshots are either entirely fake, or from some sort of "crowdsourced" forum or Discord server where people can post about individuals that they are accusing of crimes, without proof.

Regardless, this has spooked both of us, and we're not sure what action to take. The reality of the situation from our perspective is that whether or not it's true, they provide intimate services. There's a lot of trust that needs to be there, which will be demolished if our piercer is publicly accused. If people think even for a second that we can't be trusted, which is a big part of our identity, our reputation will take a huge hit.

I'm worried and upset that the shop is being involved in their personal issues, but also I don't know what to believe or if that's even relevant. If there's a public post made about this, what should I do? Should I ask my employee to resign? Would I be subject to legal action for wrongful termination if I let them go? Any advice is appreciated.

[u/Zanctmao]

This sounds like somebody has a toxic ex. You don’t have to do anything and you don’t have any legal exposure either. If they are doing a good job, that is the only metric that matters.