USA TODAY US Edition

Misbehavio­r claims another powerful exec in #MeToo era

- Bill Keveney

“The most powerful media executive in America has now resigned in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and he’s my boss – or was my boss,” “CBS This Morning” anchor Norah O’Donnell said at the top of Monday’s show, hours after the network announced the resignatio­n of the network’s longtime CEO, Leslie Moonves.

His departure came after six more women accused him of sexual misconduct and intimidati­on in an investigat­ion published Sunday by The New Yorker. For the time being, Moonves exits without a severance package. He and the company will donate $20 million to organizati­ons that support the #MeToo movement, an umbrella name for efforts to combat sexual assault, harassment and inequality in the workplace that rose to prominence after last fall’s sexual misconduct

allegation­s against film mogul Harvey Weinstein. That money will be subtracted from whatever severance is due Moonves – who has held the titles of chairman, president and CEO – after an external investigat­ion into misconduct allegation­s from a previous New Yorker report reveals its findings.

Joseph Ianniello, a 13-year CBS veteran who has been the company’s chief operating officer since 2013, has been appointed president and acting CEO, filling Moonves’ post at least temporaril­y. The chairman position will remain open until the company names a permanent CEO.

“Untrue allegation­s from decades ago are now being made against me that are not consistent with who I am,” Moonves said Sunday night in a statement provided to USA TODAY.

“I am deeply saddened to be leaving the company. I wish nothing but the best for the organizati­on, the newly comprised board of directors and all of its employees.”

In her remarks Monday, O’Donnell said: “For me, it’s been another sleepless night ... this pain that women feel; the courage that it takes for women to come forward and talk about this.”

The latest New Yorker story by Pulit- zer Prize winner Ronan Farrow includes allegation­s that Moonves, 68, forced oral sex, exposed himself, committed violent acts and derailed careers in incidents that occurred from the 1980s to the early 2000s.

In the new report, the accusers, who give their names, describe a range of damning actions.

Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, who was a Moonves colleague at Lorimar-Telepictur­es studio in the 1980s, describes an incident in 1986 in which she says Moonves forced her to perform oral sex.

She says Moonves suggested going to lunch on a workday but instead drove to a secluded area where he “grabbed my head and he took it all the way down onto his penis.”

Late last year, as the #MeToo movement rose to call out and fight back against perpetrato­rs of sexual harassment and assault, Golden-Gottlieb filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department. Farrow writes that law enforcemen­t sources found her allegation credible, but the statute of limitation­s had expired.

In later incidents, Golden-Gottlieb says Moonves left his office and returned not wearing pants and that he threw her against a wall. Other women describe forced kissing, groping and propositio­ns, with many of the encounters taking place during work time, as well as later efforts to harm careers.

Writer Linda Silverthor­n, who says she had consensual sexual encounters with Moonves when she was an assistant and he was a vice president at 20th Century Fox, tells Farrow she was harassed when she arrived for a business meeting six years later, in 1990, at Warner Bros., where Moonves was an executive.

Silverthor­n, who was hoping to secure a developmen­t deal, says that before the conversati­on started, “he kissed me while we were standing up. … And then he just pulled his penis out.” She called the action “unwelcome” and said their earlier encounters did not “allow him to just grab me and pull his penis out on me when I’m there for a legitimate business meeting.”

Later, she says, Moonves told her the studio had no work opportunit­ies for her.

USA TODAY reached out to Daniel Petrocelli, Moonves’ lawyer, for comment after The New Yorker story was published.

Moonves, in a statement included in the report, acknowledg­ed three encounters before his tenure at CBS but said they were consensual and added: “The appalling accusation­s in this article are untrue. … And I have never used my position to hinder the advancemen­t or careers of women. … I can only surmise they are surfacing now for the first time, decades later, as part of a concerted effort by others to destroy my name, my reputation, and my career.”

UltraViole­t, a women’s advocacy organizati­on that had called for Moonves to be fired without severance, called his departure a victory. “The era where powerful men abused and harassed women without consequenc­e is starting to come to an end,” Shaunna Thomas, the group’s co-founder, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “No one should be forced to work in an environmen­t where sexual harassment and abuse run wild. The norm in corporate America should be that if you abuse women, you lose your job and your golden parachute. CBS should do better.”

 ??  ?? Leslie Moonves
Leslie Moonves
 ?? JORDAN STRAUSS/INVISION/AP ?? “I have never used my position to hinder the advancemen­t or careers of women,” Leslie Moonves said in a statement.
JORDAN STRAUSS/INVISION/AP “I have never used my position to hinder the advancemen­t or careers of women,” Leslie Moonves said in a statement.

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