Jimmy John’s franchise owner settles employee rape case for $1.4M

The owner of a Jimmy John franchise in Sterling Heights has agreed to a $1.4 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by a mentally and physically challenged teenage girl and her mother who accused a male employee of raping her at the eatery.

Turner Services Group, which owns multiple Jimmy John’s franchises, and TSG staffing agreed to the payout settlement that was approved Tuesday by Judge Joseph Toia of Macomb County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit alleged the girl, whose identity along with her mother’s have been withheld in court documents, was raped in August 2020 by Jimmy John’s delivery driver Jerry Brown-Pegues in a storage room at the store on Van Dyke near Metropolitan Parkway.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Ven Johnson, said he had hoped to obtain an even larger amount because of the egregious nature of the companies’ negligence but said the defendants didn’t have enough insurance coverage. He said insurance is covering about $900,000 of the payout.

“If we had gotten a jury verdict in this case it would’ve exceed the settlement, but there is no other money available,” Johnson said.

Frankenmuth Mutual Insurance last December sued all of the parties in the lawsuit filed by Johnson’s clients. The case is pending in Macomb Circuit Court.

Rebecca Turner, attorney for Turner Services Group, said she could not comment because the deal has not been signed by all the parties.

Brown-Pegues, 37, has been criminally charged by the Macomb Prosecutor’s Office with third-degree criminal sexual conduct, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. A preliminary examination is pending in 41A District Court in Sterling Heights.

Johnson said the incident was especially appalling because the defendants knew when they hired Brown-Pegues he was on parole in Oakland County for sexually assaulting an office worker and knew or should have known he was not supposed to be in contact with minor females. The conviction information was on his application, he said.

“They knew from the very beginning he was on parole for rape,” he said. “They let this guy have a job,”

Not only that, he said, the victim had complained to human resources about him making inappropriate comments to her, and another female employee complained Brown-Pegues was “creeping her out.”

“They had so many bites at the apple” to stop Brown-Pegues, he said.

On the day of the incident, the victim refused Brown-Pegues’ multiple requests for oral sex before the attack occurred later in the day, the lawsuit said.

Brown-Pegues, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 300 pounds, was an employee when the girl started working at that store 16 days before the incident, according to the complaint.

Johnson said the incident shows what can happen when a company places a priority on profit over good judgment. He said the company was desperate for employees at the time because of a shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They put profits over safety,” he said. “The lesson to be learned here is common sense isn’t so common when people are trying to make money.”

Brown-Pegues was convicted by an Oakland County jury in 2017 of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for sexually assaulting a woman in March 2017 in a computer room at an office, according to Michigan Department of Corrections and court records. He was sentenced in July 2017 to two to 15 years in prison and was released in July 2019 for a two-year stint on parole, records say.

However, he was returned to prison on an alleged parole violation following the Jimmy John’s incident, records say.

“He’s off the streets and back behind bars where he belongs,” Johnson said.

The incident has been difficult on the victim, who is in therapy, Johnson said. It was her first job. She commuted from Detroit for the job.

“She is struggling,” Johnson said. “It’s day by day. It’s a lifetime of work.”

He said money will go to help her, he said. The young woman, now 18 or 19, is under a guardianship so her finances can be managed.