Lawyers for Fox News chairman Roger Ailes on Friday asked a judge to halt anchor Gretchen Carlson’s “shameless publicity campaign” against her former boss, and send her sexual harassment lawsuit against him to arbitration in accordance with her employment contract.
The request came two days after Carlson sued Ailes in Superior Court in New Jersey, portraying him as a persistent harasser who demoted her and ultimately forced her from Fox News, her employer since 2005, after she rebuffed his advances. Ailes has forcefully denied Carlson’s allegations.
Carlson’s lawyers, Nancy Erika Smith and Martin Hyman, said their client intends to pursue her right to a public jury trial.
“Roger Ailes is trying to force this case into a secret arbitration proceeding,” the lawyers said in a statement. “Gretchen never agreed to arbitrate anything with Mr. Ailes.”
Trying to move the case behind closed doors so that the public cannot see the proceedings.
Hmm, now why does that sound to familiar?
Of course it is unlikely that this would even help Roger Ailes as more and more women are pointing an accusing finger his way.
Courtesy of the New York Daily News:
In recent days, more than a dozen women have contacted Carlson’s New Jersey-based attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, and made detailed allegations of sexual harassment by Ailes over a 25-year period dating back to the 1960s when he was a producer on The Mike Douglas Show. “These are women who have never told these stories until now,” Smith told me. “Some are in lot of pain.” Taken together, these stories portray Ailes as a boss who spoke openly of expecting women to perform sexual favors in exchange for job opportunities. “He said that’s how all these men in media and politics work — everyone’s got their friend,” recalled Kellie Boyle, who says Ailes propositioned her in 1989, shortly after he helped George H.W. Bush become president, serving as his chief media strategist.
Six of the women agreed to speak with New York publicly for the first time. Two spoke on the record; the others requested anonymity for reasons that include shame and fear of retribution. “I didn’t tell my husband, it was so mortifying,” said Marsha Callahan, a former model who says Ailes harassed her in the late ‘60s, shortly before he became Richard Nixon’s media adviser.
Damn, if this keeps up Ailes may soon replace Bill Cosby as the most disgusting sexual predator in America.
Source http://ift.tt/29wDtHf
