FAN IMAL HOUSE
‘Threesome’ talk, hookers & boozing in sports radio suit Host Benigno among staffers accused of sex harassment
Booze, brawls and babes fueled an “anything goes” frat house atmosphere at WFAN, where silver-haired host Joe Benigno bragged about threesomes with prostitutes and his wife, according to a bombshell sexual harassment lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Ex-sales executive Lauren Lockwood, 40, who filed the $5 million suit in Brooklyn Civil Court, says she brought in top clients and millions in sales, all the while being subjected to a bro culture full of sexual innuendo, leering co-workers and creepy back rubs.
In November 2014, when Lockwood's desk was moved to the same floor as WFAN, Benigno took that as an invitation to flirt and brag about his sexual prowess, the suit said.
The sport-chat host would stop by her desk, rub her back and whisper in her ear about his sexual acrobatics, according to the suit. Benigno shared not-safe-for-work photos of his naked wife with a prostitute and invited her to join the couple for a menage a trois, she said in the suit.
Benigno, 64, also compared the physiques of other women in the office and carried on a two-year affair with a sales assistant, Lockwood claims.
When she rebuffed his advances, he fumed, “Can't even give her a compliment,” she claims.
Benigno, who has been at the station for 24 years and hosts a show from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. with Evan Roberts, refuted Lockwood's claims through his agent.
“Joe categorically denies the allegations,” Mark Lepselter said. “My father once told me on any story, always consider the source and those who live in glass houses. We're more than prepared to handle the situation if need be.”
As if the sexually charged chatter wasn't bad enough, Lockwood also had to put up with drunken co-workers, the suit said.
Whisky, beer and tequila flowed freely at the station, and liquor tabs would climb to $4,000 when ad execs wooed clients, the suit said.
“Jameson Whisky and pickleback shots were often the choice of alcohol,” the saleswoman said in her suit.
Lockwood put in five years at the station, ranking first among the 65 sales staffers where men outnumbered women four to one. CBS Sports Radio, which oversaw WFAN, allowed salesmen to ply clients with liquor and take them strip clubs to court their business, the suit said. Company cards were used to fund the parties that sometimes caused co-workers to come into work “drunk and smelling of alcohol,” according to the complaint. One salesman “admitted to paying for two prostitutes (cost $1,300) which he put on his own credit card and was seeking reimbursement,” Lockwood claims in her suit.
“Employees were permitted to drink the wine and beer in their office cubicles and engage in flip cup drinking games,” she said.
During her tenure there, salesmen were given lower quotas, better accounts, bigger expense accounts and allowed to slide on various transgressions, she said.
In July 2017, during a viewing of the Floyd Mayweather/Conor McGregor fight at the Barclays Center, an argument broke out between a current and former staffer that erupted into a wild brawl.
In the donnybrook, which Lockwood said was videotaped, she was punched, pushed and knocked down. The next day it was Lockwood who was suspended, charged with acting erratically and reprimanded for inviting the former staffer into the sports suite. The male employee who was fighting was not disciplined, she said.
She was fired a week later and she claims CBS radio managers have interfered with her getting another job.
CBS Sports Radio and WFAN were bought by Entercom last year. A message left with the company spokesman was not returned.
Sources for Benigno said he has hired a lawyer.