NEW YORK — A Fox News contributor came forward Monday to level more sexual harassment allegations against deposed chief executive Roger Ailes.
The new allegations come two days after it was revealed that the network’s most popular on-air personality, Bill O’Reilly, has settled multiple complaints about his own behavior with women.
O’Reilly was due to return to the air Monday after a weekend report in The New York Times that he and his employer had paid five women a total of $13 million to settle allegations of sexual harassment or other inappropriate conduct by Fox’s ratings king.
The new lawsuit against Ailes was brought by Fox’s Julie Roginsky and is notable because it accuses Fox’s current management of trying to cover up for Ailes.
Roginsky said that Ailes, who lost his job last summer after sexual harassment complaints that he has denied, suggested that she have sex with “older, married, conservative men.”
She said Ailes would insist upon a kiss hello at their meetings, requiring Roginsky to bend over so he could look down her dress.
She was seeking a permanent role on Fox’s show “The Five.” But after a meeting in April 2015 where she turned down Ailes’ advances, he wouldn’t meet with her again, and she never got the regular role on the late afternoon show, she said.
She said that even though Fox executives knew she had harassment allegations against Ailes, she was never encouraged to speak to the law firm hired by Fox News parent 21st Century Fox to investigate claims against him. And she said Fox never looked into her charges
.At a Los Angeles news conference Monday, lawyer Lisa Bloom detailed allegations against O’Reilly by Wendy Walsh, a regular guest on the prime-time show “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Bloom said that O’Reilly had told Walsh that he would recommend her for a paid contributor role on the network. Walsh and O’Reilly had dinner in Los Angeles in 2013, but when Walsh refused his invitation to come to his hotel room, his attitude changed and she was soon dropped from the show, according to Walsh.
Walsh said she came forward because she was told by a Times reporter that many of the women who have accused O’Reilly of harassment are bound by gag orders.
—From news service reports
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