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Media: More details on a predatory CEO
CBS’s disgraced former chief, Les Moonves, repeatedly lied to investigators as new misconduct allegations emerged, said Rachel Abrams and Edmund Lee in The New York Times. The powerful executive was forced to step down in September, as CBS hired outside investigators to look into claims of sexual harassment. Investigators have compiled a 59-page report for CBS’s board, which found that Moonves had “transactional” sexual relationships with at least four CBS employees and kept a woman employee “on call” for oral sex. It also alleges that Moonves “engaged in multiple acts of serious nonconsensual sexual misconduct in and outside of the workplace.” “It looks like CBS might now have grounds to deny Les Moonves his $120 million severance package,” said Laura Bradley in Vanity Fair. CBS hired the outside investigators, in part, to determine whether it can withhold his whopping severance, and the “damning report” says the network had cause to fire him. The report says he deleted incriminating text messages and gave investigators his son’s iPad instead of his own. One of the most powerful responses to Moonves’ behavior came from CBS This Morning anchor Norah O’Donnell: “Women cannot achieve equality in the workplace or society until there is a reckoning and a taking of responsibility.”