Melania Trump's Former Aide Speaks Out About Sexual Harassment Claims

Melania Trump's former aide has reacted following reports a server at Trump National Golf Club was allegedly sexually harassed by a supervisor, then tricked into signing an illegal non-disclosure agreement (NDA) by a Donald Trump lawyer.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff spoke out about the Trump family's use of NDAs after Alice Bianco, who used to work at the New Jersey club, alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in New Jersey's Middlesex County Superior Court that she was tricked into signing an illegal non-disclosure agreement by Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, in 2021 after being sexually harassed and coerced into sex by a supervisor named Pavel Melichar. Trump and Melichar aren't named defendants in the suit.

Bianco, then 21, said club food and beverage manager Melichar, who was in his mid-50s made her wear short skirts at work and forcibly attempted to kiss her. He allegedly forced her "to engage in sex as a quid pro quo for continued employment and 'protection,'" according to the suit.

She said when she hired a lawyer that Habba, a member of the club, allegedly approached Bianco and encouraged her to fire her lawyer, before persuading her to sign an NDA that included a penalty of $1,000 a day if she violated it, in exchange for what the lawsuit described as a "paltry sum." The lawsuit doesn't say how much that was.

Habba told Bianco that "you don't want to go public with this" and "I can protect you," the suit quotes her as saying. She "poisoned" her relationship with her lawyer meaning she was left without representation.

The suit seeks to stop the golf club from enforcing the NDA, as well as to allow Bianco to keep the settlement money, pay her legal fees; and refer Habba to the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics over "unethical behavior." The NDA is illegal under New Jersey law, which has barred such agreements since 2019, the suit says.

Newsweek has contacted Habba by email to comment on this story. In an email to Politico, she said: "I always conduct myself ethically and acted no differently in this circumstance."

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Winston Wolkoff, a former senior adviser to Melania Trump who has now become an outspoke critic of the Trump family implied the use of NDAs was not uncommon among those associated with the former president.

"The Trumps use of NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS (NDA's) have kept too many SILENT for far too long," she wrote alongside a link to NBC News' coverage of the lawsuit.

Newsweek contacted Winston Wolkoff and the Trump Organization by email to comment on this story.

Winston Wolkoff left the White House in February 2018 after it was reported that a company she founded received $26 million for its role in Trump's inauguration and that she personally received $1.6 million. She denied the allegations in a 2019 statement to The New York Times.

In 2020, Winston Wolkoff published a book titled Melania and Me about her 15-year friendship with the former first lady.

Meanwhile, Habba, who started representing Trump later that year, is now one of the lawyers representing him in his civil fraud trial and in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, which is scheduled to go to trial in January.

She previously represented Trump in his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and dozens of former Justice Department and FBI officials. Habba and Trump were ordered to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions to the 31 defendants, including Clinton, they sued in the "completely frivolous" Florida lawsuit, in the words of the judge in the case.