Couple accidentally send nanny racist texts, then sack her

'We're not racist people'

'I know it’s discrimination,' says nanny Giselle Maurice (Facebook)

A nanny is suing a New York couple for discrimination after the wife accidentally sent the childminder a racist text message meant to go to her husband and she was then later fired.

Giselle Maurice was to be paid $350 (£270) a day to be the live-in nanny working for financier Joel Plasco and his wife Lynsey Plasco-Flaxman at their home in Tribeca, Manhattan.

But it is alleged upon realising the nanny’s ethnicity, Ms Plasco-Flaxman sent a text message which read: “NOOOOOOOOOOO ANOTHER BLACK PERSON”, which was supposedly meant to go to her husband.

But the lawsuit says it was instead sent to Ms Maurice, twice.

Ms Plasco-Flaxman is then alleged to have immediately fired Ms Maurice out of embarrassment, paid her for one day's work and sent her home in an Uber.

She reportedly told Ms Maurice the child’s outgoing nanny had been African-American and had done a bad job, and had been expecting a Filipino woman.

Ms Maurice is suing the pair for around $63,000 (£48,500) in damages.

Speaking to The New York Post, she said: “[I want] to show them, look, you don’t do stuff like that.”

“I know it’s discrimination.”

But responding to the paper, Mr Plasco, co-chairman of the Dalmore Group, said: “[My wife] had sent her something that she didn’t mean to say. She’s not a racist. We’re not racist people.”

He added: “But would you put your children in the hands of someone you’ve been rude to, even if it was by mistake? Your newborn baby? Come on.”

Ms Maurice said that despite the mother’s text she wouldn’t have acted any differently towards the child as it would have put her career in jeopardy.

“This is my reputation. Why would I do something to a baby?” she said.

“I was willing to work with her and prove her wrong, but it was her conscience, and she couldn’t work with me anymore.”

Mr Plasco reportedly described the lawsuit as “extortion”, saying he owed her nothing because there was no contract in place.