Albany, NY Athena Andrikopoulos, a 26-year-old Guilderland woman, brought charges against Galaxy Communications, owner of WRCZ and one-time employer of radio personality J.R. Gach, alleging that she suffered emotional damage due to the insensitive remarks of one of the hosts. The suit claimed that on February 15, 2006, Gach's on-air sidekick, Shawn Bolts, talked about having seen a scarred woman at a diner. The Redwood Diner on Hamburg Street in Rotterdam, owned by Andrikopoulos' family, was not named on air, nor was Andrikopoulos. She stated that at one point, Gach referred to it as the "wormwood diner" and also the "genetic mutant diner". It is the only diner on Hamburg Street. Sources stated that when Athena was three years old, she was playing near a stove, pretending it was a piano like the one her sister was playing in another room at the time. Her dress caught fire and caused severe burns that doctors believed would be fatal. Instead, she survived and lived through fifty surgeries, gaining confidence along the way. Andrikopoulos told the jury that her confidence was destroyed after the comments on the radio show. In her suit, she claimed that she wanted the DJs to take responsibility for what they did. As part of a settlement reached, Galaxy Communications agreed to a $1 million payout to resolve the lawsuit.
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