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Suit accuses UC Regent Norman Pattiz of brandishing gun at employee

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Regent Norman Pattiz participates in a discussion by the UC Board of Regents to raise student tuition fees before the board approved the plan during a meeting at the UCSF Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017. A lawsuit was filed against Pattiz stating the UC regent brandished a loaded weapon at an employee.
Regent Norman Pattiz participates in a discussion by the UC Board of Regents to raise student tuition fees before the board approved the plan during a meeting at the UCSF Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017. A lawsuit was filed against Pattiz stating the UC regent brandished a loaded weapon at an employee.Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

A new lawsuit accuses University of California Regent Norman Pattiz of requiring an employee to fake data to boost advertising revenue, brandishing loaded handguns to force compliance, and illegally firing the employee for complaining about it.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 22 in Los Angeles Superior Court against Pattiz and his company, PodcastOne, also accuses the regent of directing employees to bad-mouth the plaintiff, Raymond Hernandez, at his next job, getting him fired.

The lawsuit says the reason for this bullying was that Pattiz believed that Hernandez had given another employee, Heather McDonald, a recording of Pattiz sexually harassing her last year. McDonald quit and made the recording public in an embarrassing episode for which Pattiz publicly apologized.

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Pattiz denied the accusations.

Hernandez worked as a producer at PodcastOne from July 2014 to July 2016. His suit says Pattiz often required him to falsify the number of times certain podcasts were downloaded so advertisers would believe they were more popular than they really were.

When Hernandez balked at providing the fake numbers, Pattiz, who is also a reserve officer of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, “brandished loaded handguns at PodcastOne’s office in Beverly Hills, pointing directly” at him, the suit says. It says Pattiz also waved his knife belt “to intimidate (Hernandez) to comply.”

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In a statement, Pattiz responded: “This guy must be crazy. I’ve never met alone with him. I didn’t hire him or fire him. I barely know who he is.

“The fact that I’m a law enforcement reserve is well known,” the statement says. “I didn’t and would never act in the manner that’s been described.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov

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Nanette covers California's public universities - the University of California and California State University - as well as community colleges and private universities. She's written about sexual misconduct at UC and Stanford, the precarious state of accreditation at City College of San Francisco, and what happens when the UC Berkeley student government discovers a gay rights opponent in its midst. She has exposed a private art college where students rack up massive levels of debt (one student's topped $400k), and covered audits peering into UC finances, education lawsuits and countless student protests.

But writing about higher education also means getting a look at the brainy creations of students and faculty: Robotic suits that help paralyzed people walk. Online collections of folk songs going back hundreds of years. And innovations touching on everything from virtual reality to baseball.

Nanette is also covering the COVID-19 pandemic and served as health editor during the first six months of the crisis, which quickly ended her brief tenure as interim investigations editor.

Previously, Nanette covered K-12 education. Her stories led to changes in charter school laws, prompted a ban on Scientology in California public schools, and exposed cheating and censorship in testing.

A past president of the Society of Professional Journalists' Northern California chapter, Nanette has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in sociology from Queens College. She speaks English and Spanish.

She can be reached at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.