Them too - The Reckoning thread
ASPartOfMe
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Wall Street’s #MeToo moment could hit multimillion dollar tipping point
Forget about Harvey Weinstein and the world of celebrity high rollers. More than 1 in 5 workers in cash-rich wealth management — from the large firms to smaller broker-dealers peddling stocks, bonds and planning finances — report a “high prevalence” of sexual harassment in the workplace, according to a survey by SourceMedia, a financial media company.
“Like all women who work on Wall Street, I sometimes feel like I am at a frat party,” Rita Robbins, founder and president of Affiliated Advisors in New York, admitted to The Post, referring to the mostly locker-room bad boy culture she says pervades financial services. “Virtually every woman I know has a story or four about horrific behavior that they have been subjected to.”
The revelations of inappropriate sexual innuendo and playboy antics by co-workers and some bosses come as Wall Street so far remains largely unscathed by #MeToo announcements.
But insiders say if financial industry victims break their silence, the consequences could reverberate from Main Street to Wall Street, with multimillion-dollar lawsuits and settlements.
“Sadly, we have felt powerless due to long-standing, corporate culture attitudes,” said Robbins, a female boss who oversees 110 employees.
Insiders and the latest survey reveal how a testosterone-fueled environment rampant with inappropriate behavior bedevils female Wall Street workers.
In a broad survey of professionals that included advisers, bankers, insurance workers and tax accountants, it is the financial advisory staff at brokerage houses who are much more likely to experience unwanted sexual conduct, which is highly prevalent in their sector.
“It’s getting better, but it is a carry-over from years past, when the industry included a substantial amount of flirting and hitting on, which today is more likely than not called sexual harassment,” one male survey respondent reported.
In fact, twice as many pros, or 22 percent, in wealth management, where the vast majority of advisers are men, reported a high prevalence of sexual advances compared with the banking sector.
The lowest reported prevalence, at 8 percent, was among tax and accounting professionals. That industry has a much more even split of male and female workers.
“The stats are mind-boggling,” one male former Merrill Lynch broker said on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution at his next financial services job. “Everyone knows in the industry but is absolutely terrified to comment publicly, because any comment can used as a weapon against you — and next thing, you are standing on the corner with a box with all your office stuff in it.”
This Wall Street hot shot said not much has changed since he started his career in the early 1990s.
“I knew of one female salesperson on the institutional side at a wirehouse who had to intimately flirt with clients as she was building up her accounts,” he said. “She had to badly compromise herself to keep her job.”
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how is the guy [or gal] to defend himself/herself against false accusation, then?
I don't know, but I don't think secretly recording people against their will when they come to your house is the answer.
ASPartOfMe
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Masseuse accuses Marvel's Stan Lee of sexual misconduct
Maria Carballo filed the lawsuit Monday seeking more than $50,000 in punitive damages and attorney fees from the 95-year-old writer and artist.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Lee's attorney, Jonathan Freund, called the lawsuit "a shakedown" and says Lee denies the allegations.
Carballo also filed a complaint with Chicago police, who are investigating.
According to the complaint, Lee fondled himself during the first massage and moaned so much during the second that Carballo stopped the treatment. Lee stood up and angrily demanded Carballo keep massaging him.
The complaint also says Carballo was massaging Lee with her feet when he grabbed her foot and touched it to his genitals.
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auntblabby
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Maria Carballo filed the lawsuit Monday seeking more than $50,000 in punitive damages and attorney fees from the 95-year-old writer and artist.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Lee's attorney, Jonathan Freund, called the lawsuit "a shakedown" and says Lee denies the allegations.
Carballo also filed a complaint with Chicago police, who are investigating.
According to the complaint, Lee fondled himself during the first massage and moaned so much during the second that Carballo stopped the treatment. Lee stood up and angrily demanded Carballo keep massaging him.
The complaint also says Carballo was massaging Lee with her feet when he grabbed her foot and touched it to his genitals.
I honestly hope it's not true about Stan "the man" Lee, as he has been an icon in my life since I was a little kid.
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auntblabby
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ASPartOfMe
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Tom Brokaw Accused of Sexual Harassment By Former NBC Anchor
But as it turned out, her biggest battle at work wasn’t in the field. She says it was as a victim of sexual harassment by Tom Brokaw, the legendary newsman who manned the anchor desk for “NBC Nightly News” for 22 years and hosted “Today” and “Meet the Press.”
In a series of interviews with Variety conducted over several months, Vester alleged that Brokaw physically tried to force her to kiss him on two separate occasions, groped her in a NBC conference room and showed up at her hotel room uninvited. Two friends who Vester told at the time corroborated her story with Variety, and she shared her journal entries from the time period. Brokaw, who has been married to Meredith Auld since 1962, has never before been publicly accused of sexual harassment.
Vester, who was 28 at the time of the alleged incident, says she didn’t report Brokaw’s conduct to the police or NBC human resources because she was scared it would end her career. She left NBC in 1999 and went on to anchor her own show on Fox News through 2006.
She’s speaking out now, because she believes her story sheds light on the culture at NBC News, where she believes male bosses treated their female colleagues as objects. After “Today” co-host Matt Lauer was fired for inappropriate conduct involving an NBC employee last November, NBC launched an internal review of its practices but didn’t bring in an outside firm to investigate — a step Vester believes is necessary to fix NBC’s culture.
Linda Vester:
In September 1989, I was hired at NBC News to be groomed as a foreign correspondent. I had just finished a Fulbright in the Middle East, and I had been doing freelance work for CBS in Gaza. When I was interviewing at NBC, the network offered me a job where I could work my way up through the ranks. They started me as a researcher, then a field producer, then I was sent to the NBC Tampa affiliate to get more on-air experience. Then Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and NBC said, “We need her to report from the Gulf.” I was there for the duration of the Gulf War.
After I returned to the United States, I continued working jointly for NBC and its affiliates, until I was made a full-time correspondent for “Weekend Today” in 1993. At this point, at 28, I’m one the youngest correspondents at the network. In August, I was assigned to cover Pope John Paul’s trip to Denver.
We were in the Denver bureau, and there was a conference room. I’m standing there, and Tom Brokaw enters through the door and grabs me from behind and proceeds to tickle me up and down my waist. I jumped a foot and I looked at a guy who was the senior editor of “Nightly,” and his jaw was hanging open. Nobody acted like anything wrong was happening, but I was humiliated. I didn’t know Brokaw other than to say hello in the hall. He was the most powerful man at the network, and I was the most junior person, reporting for an entirely different show. It was really out of the blue.
There was a culture at NBC News, in my experience, where women who raise questions about misconduct get labeled as troublemakers. It can torpedo your career. I already knew that, so I didn’t want to make any trouble. I had just been hired full-time, and I wanted to be able to do my job. I did my best to collect myself and get on with my work.
In terms of the next time I saw Brokaw, I can’t remember. But I know when he assaulted me, which was the first week of January in 1994. I was in New York on assignment for “Weekend Today.” I was preparing to go back to Washington D.C., where I lived. And I was sitting at a borrowed desk, when I received a computer message from Tom Brokaw asking me what I was doing that night.
I barely knew him and I didn’t work for his broadcast. But when the most powerful man at the network sends you a computer message, you answer him. So I replied that I had checked out of my hotel and I was going to catch the last shuttle back to D.C. before the snowstorm.
He wrote that it wasn’t a good idea. He asked me about staying in New York to have drinks. And then he wrote a second message that said, “Nah, too risky.”
At this point, my antennae went up. I was trying to use humor to signal that I was not interested in whatever he was suggesting, so I wrote, “I only drink milk and cookies.” It was the only thing I could think of at the moment, hoping it would jolt him into realizing that this was inappropriate and I was [nearly] 30 years younger than him.
Then I wrote a line that tried more pointedly to make him aware that what he was doing was questionable. This is in my journal. I said: “There is nothing I would like more than a great chat with someone I admire, but if appearances are a concern, that’s valid.” I was trying to say if you’re concerned this looks wrong, it’s because it is wrong. I immediately logged out of the system, because that shows you’re not longer available for discussion.
I got really scared, so I called my best friend, who was a producer in the Washington bureau, and I read her all the messages out loud. She said, “He’s hitting on you and you’ve got to get out of the situation.” I was quite shaken, as I made my way to dinner. I took a cab to the airport to catch the shuttle to D.C., but when I got to LaGuardia, I had missed my flight. So I took a cab back to the Essex House, checked back in, put the phone onto my lap and started returning calls. Every correspondent’s travel was kept in a central file that anyone can access, so anybody could tell where I was.
I received three calls that night. One was from a friend. Another was from a source. And the third was from Tom Brokaw. He said he was coming over to order milk and cookies.
I felt powerless to say no. He could ruin my career. I don’t recall saying, “Ok.” I just remember being frozen. I went cold inside and started shaking. And I felt trapped because he was undeterred by anything I had said before. It wasn’t a request. He was insistent.
I called my friend again, and I was scared out of my mind. She said, “Ok, I’m going to stay on the phone with you, and let’s hope he changes his mind and doesn’t show up.” About 30 minutes later, there was a knock at the door. She and I both realize that it’s Tom. I started shaking.
I open the door. I ask in an intentionally skeptical way, trying to slow this down, “What are you doing here?”
He answered that he was attending his stage manager’s retirement party and was in the neighborhood. He walked past me and sat down on the sofa in my suite. He puts his arm on the back of the sofa and he said, “I like our rat-a-tat-tat.” I thought it was a bizarre statement.
I said nothing to him. He was sitting, and I was standing across the coffee table from him approximately four feet away. Now I could feel myself trembling. As I stood there, I asked in a frustrated and scared tone, “What do you want from me?”
And he gave me a look of annoyance like he couldn’t believe I didn’t get it. He said, “An affair of more than passing affection.”
I struggled for what to say, trying not to offend a man that could end my career. So I protested, and I said, “But you’re married and I’m Catholic.”
And then he shot me another annoyed look and said in a condescending tone, “Don’t tell me you’re like Russert.” That was a reference to Tim Russert, who was famously Catholic.
I insisted, “I am.”
Tom patted the sofa, where he intended for me to sit. I sat down, and I was so afraid, I jammed myself up against the back of the sofa and I grabbed a throw pillow, because I was trying to signal to him with my body language that I was both frightened and unwilling. Just to be sure I was getting the message across, I brought up a case of sexual harassment that had happened in the Washington D.C. bureau. “That caused a lot of pain,” I said.
That’s when he leaned over, and pressed a finger to my lips. He said, “This is our compact.”
He grabbed me behind my neck and tried to force me to kiss him. I was shocked to feel the amount of force and his full strength on me. I could smell alcohol on his breath, but he was totally sober. He spoke clearly. He was in control of his faculties.
I broke away and stood up and said, “Tom, I do not want to do this with you. If I did, I would leave for London with a loss of innocence and I don’t want to go down that road.” I had just been promoted to foreign correspondent in the London bureau.
He sat there for what felt like minutes and he finally said, “I guess I should go.” I said, “Yeah.” And he got up and tried to kiss me again on the way out as he left.
I stood at the door shaking for a long time, and I called my friend and told her I was safe. I told her exactly what had happened — every word — and she stayed on the phone with me for a while. And then, eventually, I wrote down everything that had happened in my journal and fell asleep.
The next day, I got on a plane back to D.C. and Brokaw repeatedly sent me computer messages that I refused to answer. He finally sent me a message late in the afternoon that said something like, “I want to lower the temperature on this. Call me.” He put down his extension number. I felt like I had to call him, not because I wanted to, but because he was so powerful. I don’t remember verbatim what he said. But I do remember he was engaging in verbal gymnastics to try to revise what had happened the night before in such a way as to make it sound like it started out as consensual. I did not assent to this revision of events. I was disgusted.
Shortly after, I moved to London. In May 1995, it was the 50th anniversary of VE Day, and all the correspondents were working on reports for different coverage. Tom had come over to anchor “Nightly News” from London.
I’m out of the office, doing a story. When I get back, I found that Tom had left a small square post-it note on my desk that said, “Milk and cookies?”
My heart sank. I thought, “Oh god. Not this again.” I hoped that if I was just out of the bureau, I could avoid him. But I had my laptop with me, and I got a computer message from him asking what everyone was doing that night. This was inappropriate because we’re not friendly and he’d already attacked me. I tried to be polite, again signaling that I wasn’t interested.
I wrote back something like, “I don’t know what everyone else is doing, but I’m going out with friends.”
“Where?” he wanted to know.
Regrettably, I answered his question honestly. I said the name of the restaurant. I figured he wouldn’t be brazen enough to show up to a restaurant where I’m with other people who aren’t even in television.
But he did, and then he invited himself to my flat. He didn’t ask. He said. At this point, I’m heartsick. I can’t believe this is happening again. I can’t believe someone who is supposedly a decent journalist is being so coercive and disgusting. I remember unlocking my door to my flat and turning on the lights and Tom walking past me. He sits down in my living room and asks for drinks. I got two glasses of tap water and set them down on the table.
He started bragging about himself and particularly bragging about how he was such close friends with Bob Redford. I’m baffled that the anchor of NBC Nightly News is boasting about his movie star friends.
He pats the sofa. As I sit, reluctantly again, I look down at his hands and I made a mental note of how swollen his knuckles were, a reminder of just how much older than me he was.
In the same exact way as in 1994, he reached behind my neck and tried to force my head toward him and force me to kiss him. I broke away again. I said, “You need to go.” And incredibly, he said, “Can you walk me to a taxi?” I thought, “You just tried to assault me, but you expect me to walk you to a taxi?”
Even though I know I was not in any way at fault in what happened to me with Brokaw, I still suffered years of humiliation and isolation. I really do hope that by me telling my story and by shining this light, Comcast will understand why it’s so essential to hire outside counsel to investigate this deeply rooted problem.
Tom Brokaw Rips "Sensational" Accuser Claims: I Was "Ambushed and Then Perp Walked"
The target? Linda Vester, a former colleague at NBC News who told The Post and Variety that Brokaw had sexually assaulted her in 1994; that he had “tickled” her around the waist at the Denver bureau of NBC News; and that he’d made an advance in London, as well. The exposé left Brokaw feeling bruised: “It is 4:00 am on the first day of my new life as an accused predator in the universe of American journalism. I was ambushed and then perp walked across the pages of The Washington Post and Variety as an avatar of male misogyny, taken to the guillotine and stripped of any honor and achievement I had earned in more than a half century of journalism and citizenship,” he wrote.
On the factual front, Brokaw claimed that he didn’t, as alleged by Vester, grab her neck on a hotel sofa in an attempt to kiss her:
As I remember, she was at one end of a sofa, I was at the other. It was late and I had been up for 24 hours. As I got up to leave I may have leaned over for a perfunctory goodnight kiss, but my memory is that it happened at the door — on the cheek. No clenching her neck. That move she so vividly describes is NOT WHO I AM. Not in high school, college or thereafter.
There’s also a dismissal of the notion that in a New York hotel room, Brokaw actually stated his goal: “an affair of more than passing affection.” Challenging that charge, Brokaw wrote, “She often sought me out for informal meetings, including the one she describes in her New York hotel room. I should not have gone but I emphatically did not verbally and physically attack her and suggest an affair in language right out of pulp fiction.”
And on the ad feminam attack front, Brokaw wrote prolifically. Some examples:
I am facing a long list of grievances from a former colleague who left NBC News angry that she had failed in her pursuit of stardom. She has unleashed a torrent of unsubstantiated criticism and attacks on me more than twenty years after I opened the door for her and a new job at Fox News.
And:
As a private citizen who married a wealthy man, she has been active in social causes but she came to Me:Too late, portraying herself as a den mother. In the intervening years since we met on those two occasions, she had no reason to worry I could affect her career.
Some of her relatives by marriage are very close friends. She couldn’t pick up the phone and say, “I’d like to talk. I have issues from those two meetings 20 years ago?” Instead she became a character assassin. Strip away all of the hyperbole and what has she achieved? What was her goal? Hard to believe it wasn’t much more Look At Me than Me:Too.
After claiming that he helped Vester land a job at Fox News by appealing to then-boss Roger Ailes, Brokaw writes:
She got the job. I never heard from her or saw her again. I was aware that she became a big fan of Ailes, often praising his considerable broadcasting instincts in public. But when he got in trouble on sexual matters, not a peep from this woman who now describes her self as the keeper of the flame for Me:Too.
Furthermore:
[A]s I write this at dawn on the morning after a drive by shooting by Vester, the Washington Post and Variety, I am stunned by the free ride given a woman with a grudge against NBC News, no distinctive credentials or issue passions while at FOX.
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ASPartOfMe
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A Third Woman Has Accused Tom Brokaw of Sexual Misconduct
“For the record, Brokaw made a pass at me 50 years ago in my rented hillside house not long after he had obtained, on my request, the arrest record of a fraudulent advertiser for the now-defunct Los Angeles Free Press, granddaddy of the Southern California alternative press….We talked and then, abruptly, he was embracing me and giving me a French kiss. I pulled away, reminding him that he was married and a tryst was out of the question. He said, ‘Yes, it would be unfair to Meredith,’ meaning his wife.”
Reinholz goes on to writes of the incident that she “shrugged it off as progressive women of my generation were wont to do,” but that the situation made her “uncomfortable.”
Tom Brokaw scandal: NBC News accused of victim shaming, pressuring women to support star
On Tuesday, Variety reported that NBC News’ powerful standards and practices department, which sets editorial guidelines, mandated that any reports on the Brokaw accusations include that more than 100 current and former NBC News female staffers had signed a letter of support for the embattled newsman.
The New York Post reported Monday night that many women at NBC News had felt intimidated into signing the letter.
All this comes after Brokaw shamed his first accuser, former NBC correspondent and former Fox News anchor Linda Vester, in a scathing email which called Vester an embittered liar resentful that she did not become a star at NBC News. While many news organizations would look askance at such an attack, especially during the #MeToo era, NBC News appears to be giving Brokaw’s broadside tacit support.
Brokaw denied Vester’s allegations in a letter to colleagues that was shocking for its vitriol. The “NBC Nightly News” icon called his accuser “a former colleague who left NBC News angry that she had failed in her pursuit of stardom” and claimed she was “given the run of the Washington Post and Variety to vent her grievances.” He even mentioned that Vester had married a wealthy man.
NBC appears to be standing solidly behind Brokaw. The New York Post reported that NBC does not plan to investigate the accusations, and the campaign to sign the letter in support of Brokaw included some of NBC’s most powerful women, including Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell, Mika Brzezinski and Maria Shriver. And then there are those guidelines from Standards and Practices.
As for the letter of support, many of the women who signed it -- and others who did not -- reportedly felt pressured to defend the veteran broadcaster despite Vester’s claims.
“We had no choice, particularly the lower level staffers. The letter was being handed around the office and the unspoken threat was that if your name was not on it, there would be some repercussion down the road,” an NBC News employee told the New York Post.
Sherwyn said it’s a bigger issue if “upper echelon” executives were responsible for the letter circulating around the NBC News headquarters -- but anonymous staffers' complaints “absolutely” represent a nightmare for NBC’s human resources department.
Penn State University business law professor Mark Gough told Fox News that NBC was “likely within its rights” given the current employment laws, but that it wasn't necessarily a good idea to have employees sign something without providing any meaningful opportunity to refuse or the autonomy to make changes.
“While it may be legal to coerce employees into protecting more senior, powerful colleagues from bad behavior, it is clearly inconsistent with good human resource management and the public interest,” Gough said.
According to Variety, the network’s standards and practices department wanted the letter mentioned on-air despite how uncomfortable it made female staffers.
“That mandate raised eyebrows among some staffers because it urged anchors to report on a document that has been the source of controversy in the newsroom,” Variety reported.
Megyn Kelly -- who as NBC News’ highest-paid star likely would not feel threatened by executives -- was not among the powerful and influential women of NBC who came to Brokaw’s defense. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” she said Monday on “Megyn Kelly Today.”
Another NBC insider echoed Kelly, telling the Post, “When you have over 100 women like Andrea Mitchell signing a letter of support without knowing the facts, it’s pretty scary."
As for Brokaw’s email in which he seemed to take victim-shaming to the highest level, psychotherapist and author Jonathan Alpert told Fox News that Brokaw was “defending himself by devaluing and undermining the alleged victim.”
Alpert warned that shaming a possible victim “makes it more difficult for other people who might be in the same situation” to come forward.
“There's no denying the strength of social pressure and that is especially true when it comes to rallying around or against an individual,” Alpert said.
NBC is relying on its own in-house investigation which reportedly is nearing its conclusion.
In addition, the network refused to run Ronan Farrow’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein that would have outed the now-disgraced Hollywood mogul as a sexual predator months before he was exposed by The New Yorker. Farrow took his reporting to the prestigious magazine after NBC News passed and he was recently awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize for the revealing exposé that helped launch the #MeToo movement.
NBC News also sat on the “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump making lewd comments about women. Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold eventually broke the story.
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Charlie Rose’s misconduct was widespread at CBS and three managers were warned, investigation finds
An additional 27 women — 14 CBS News employees and 13 who worked with him elsewhere — said Rose sexually harassed them. Concerns about Rose’s behavior were flagged to managers at the network as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017, when Rose was co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” according to multiple people with firsthand knowledge of the conversations.
Rose’s response to the new allegations was delivered in a one-sentence email: “Your story is unfair and inaccurate.”
The new allegations follow an earlier Post report on Rose’s behavior at his namesake PBS program, in which eight women accused the TV star of making lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. Rose issued an apology. His PBS show was canceled and he was fired from CBS News.
The Post’s investigation is based on interviews over a five-month period with 107 current and former CBS News employees as well as two dozen others who worked with Rose at other television programs.
Many of those interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation. The Post corroborated specific accounts with witnesses or people in whom they confided.
The new allegations against Rose date to 1976, when, according to a former research assistant, he exposed his penis and touched her breasts in the NBC News Washington bureau where they worked.
“This other personality would come through, and the groping would happen,” said the former research assistant, Joana Matthias, now 63. An NBC News spokeswoman declined to comment.
At CBS News, where in addition to the morning show Rose worked as a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes,” some women who said they were harassed said they feared reporting the violations to executives, whom they viewed as prioritizing the careers of male stars.
“I had been there long enough to know that it was just the way things went,” said Sophie Gayter, now 27, who worked at “60 Minutes” in 2013 when, she said, Rose groped her buttocks as they walked down an office hallway to a recording studio. “People said what they wanted to you, people did what they wanted to you.”
“That said, we cannot corroborate or confirm many of the situations described. We continue to look for ways to improve our workplace and this period of reflection and action has been important to all of us. We are not done with this process.”
The executive who hired Rose for multiple roles at the network over the years, longtime “60 Minutes” head and former CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, said via email that he had no knowledge of any allegations against Rose until The Post’s November report.
“I was never informed that Charlie behaved badly with women,” Fager wrote. “I hired him because he was one of the best interviewers in the country. Period. If I knew there was this darker side he never would have been hired.”
The first instance identified by The Post in which a CBS News employee said a manager was told of Rose’s conduct was in 1986, when he was filling in as an anchor on “CBS Morning News.”
There, Annmarie Parr, a 22-year-old news clerk, delivered a script to Rose. He had made “lewd, little comments” about her appearance before, Parr said, but that day Rose took it further. “Annmarie, do you like sex?” she said he asked her. “Do you enjoy it? How often do you like to have sex?’” She said she laughed nervously and left.
Parr said she reported Rose’s comments to her boss — a senior producer whom she declined to name — and said she didn’t want to be alone with Rose. The producer laughed, Parr said, and told her, “Fine, you don’t have to be alone with him anymore.”
That same year seven women sued CBS, claiming that the workplace on the network’s overnight broadcast “Nightwatch” was “offensive and hostile” to female employees.
The women accused CBS of knowingly tolerating an environment of sexual harassment by the show’s executive producer John Huddy and unidentified other employees. Huddy, who could not be reached for comment, resigned before the suit was filed.
Rose was a co-anchor for the show in Washington, though he was not mentioned in the lawsuit.
One of the plaintiffs, Beth Homan-Ross, who worked directly with Rose as an assistant producer, told The Post that Rose frequently made sexual remarks about her breasts and buttocks. When she arrived at his house to deliver materials or prepare him for work, he would sometimes open the door naked, holding a towel. More than once, she said, Rose asked her to come into his bathroom while he was showering. She said she declined, waiting outside.
“It was a sexual land mine everywhere you stepped,” Homan-Ross, now 61, said of working in the show’s Washington office.
he lawsuit was settled under confidential terms in 1987.
Rose left CBS in 1990 and the next year launched his own show on PBS, which established his brand of long-form interviews with the famous and powerful.
By the end of the decade, Rose had become a household name. In 1998, he was brought back to CBS as a correspondent at “60 Minutes II,” a spinoff of the original program. The arrangement, in which Rose worked part time for the show, gave him the freedom to keep his show on PBS.
By then, some at CBS were concerned about Rose’s conduct toward women.
When Susan MacArthur was interviewing in the late 1990s for a job to be Rose’s assistant, she said, a CBS News executive told her to “steer clear” because of the host’s history of “questionable behavior.”
“She looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘You are going to be working alone with this man and being alone with this man in his hotel, and you need to think really hard about whether you want to do this,’ ” MacArthur said, declining to name the executive. MacArthur heeded the advice and stopped returning Rose’s calls.
For some of the women who interacted professionally with Rose, it became hard to draw lines between his roles at CBS and PBS, where, as the show’s owner, he was the boss.
In 2003, he brought a 20-year-old intern from his PBS show on a CBS trip to California for a “60 Minutes II” assignment.
“You’re not just working for a show, you’re working for Charlie, period,” said the former intern, Corrina Collins, who now lives in Montana and works as a transportation planner.
On the plane, Collins said, Rose insisted she drink wine and began to “paw” her. Collins became drunk, she said, and threw up in the plane’s bathroom.
Rose squeezed her breast during the car ride from the airport, Collins said. She said he insisted that they work in his hotel room, where he told her, “I want you to ride me.” She quickly left his room. “It felt predatory,” she said. “I had already said no, but he was going to persist.”
Back in New York, Collins said she shared concerns about Rose with Yvette Vega, the executive producer of Rose’s PBS show, who she said replied that he was harmless. Vega did not respond to a request for comment.
Collins shared her account several years ago with Danna Jackson, a lawyer and family friend in Montana, who corroborated her account.
Rose had risen to become one of the news division’s biggest stars, with prominent roles as a contributor to “60 Minutes” and as co-host of “CBS This Morning.”
And soon after he was hired at “CBS This Morning,” Rose’s inappropriate behavior was flagged to a supervisor — the second time identified by The Post in which CBS News management was alerted to his conduct.
Rose hosted a holiday gathering in late 2011 for CBS and PBS staffers at the Spotted Pig, a Manhattan restaurant, and, amid other partygoers, forcibly kissed a “CBS This Morning” employee, according to two people with firsthand knowledge of the incident.
he next day, the woman who was kissed told the “CBS This Morning” executive producer, Chris Licht, what happened, but she asked him not to share with the company’s human resources department what she reported.
Licht confirmed in an email to The Post that he was told about the kissing incident with Rose. He said he abided by the wishes of the employee and spoke with Rose about the incident.
Licht, who has since been promoted to CBS executive vice president and now heads “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” declined to be quoted and did not provide further details of his conversation with Rose. He said he received no other complaints about inappropriate sexual behavior by Rose.
A CBS News spokeswoman said in a statement that Licht’s actions were “within the scope of CBS policy at the time” and that the “employee in question was satisfied with the result.” The spokeswoman added that CBS revised its policy in 2016 to require supervisors to “promptly report” harassment complaints to the human resources department or a compliance officer.
The woman who was kissed declined to comment.
Weeks later, in January 2012, a “CBS This Morning” paid contributor was on the set with Rose during an off-air moment when, she said, he drew her close, groped her right buttock and whispered in her ear, “Damn, you look good on TV.”
The contributor immediately told a friend about the incident. The friend, contacted separately by The Post, corroborated the conversation.
The third and most recent example identified by The Post in which a CBS News manager was alerted to Rose’s behavior came in early 2017. By then, Licht had been replaced by Ryan Kadro, who remains the executive producer of “CBS This Morning.”
Brooks Harris, then 24, had been working the night shift when she was briefly assigned to work in the studio during the morning hours. That’s when Rose first approached her.
Rose said that he had heard that Harris was smart and had talked to Kadro about her, according to Harris. She said Rose also began taking her to lunch at expensive restaurants, where he bought her wine and floated job opportunities at “60 Minutes” and at his PBS show.
“I was nobody, and he picked me out of a crowd of employees,” Harris recalled.
Once she started working at “Charlie Rose,” Harris said, his behavior increasingly made her uncomfortable. She said Rose told her he hired her because he liked tall women and once suggested she have sex with another female assistant, Sydney McNeal.
McNeal confirmed the remarks in an interview with The Post, adding that working for Rose was “toxic” and that it “made me question my intelligence, dignity and worth as a human being almost every day.”
When the two assistants went on an errand to Rose’s Bellport, N.Y., house, Harris said that their boss remarked jokingly that he didn’t want to hear reports of “two young women swimming naked together” in his pool.
Late one July night last year, after a “Charlie Rose” staff gathering, Harris said, Rose asked her to leave alone with him. She said he took her for drinks at the upscale restaurant Harry Cipriani and demanded she come up to his apartment. She said Rose was drunk and insisted they sit together at his desk to watch footage of his “60 Minutes” interviews with former U.S. presidents.
The situation made her uncomfortable, she said, so she made up an excuse to leave quickly.
In February, Ken Goldberg, an attorney for Harris, Wei and McNeal, sent Rose and CBS a letter containing their allegations. Among the claims: Rose subjected the women to “repeated physical and verbal sexual harassment,” including sexual touching, comments and advances.
“Management, numerous broadcasters and studio staff witnessed Mr. Rose’s unlawful conduct, and complaints were made,” Goldberg wrote. But, he added, CBS and Rose’s separate company “failed and refused to take any remedial action and that conduct continued unabated.”
Goldberg said that his clients plan to file a lawsuit in the coming days.
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Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski expelled from the Academy
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the group behind the Academy Awards, has voted to expel the actor and director from its membership, according to a statement from the organization which cited its conduct standards.
Polanski fled the US in 1978 after being charged with statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. He has continued filmmaking in Europe. He won the Oscar in 2003 for directing the World War II drama "The Pianist."
Separately Thursday, members of the American Advertising Federation's (AFF), a trade organization that recognizes professional achievements in the advertising industry, voted to rescind Cosby's induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame. The group also rescinded Cosby's President's Award, which was presented to him at the time of his 2011 induction.
According to the AFF, this is the first time members have voted to rescind an induction or award in its 69-year-history.
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Junot Díaz Pulls Out of Writers’ Festival Amid Misconduct Claims
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