CBS directors determined in December that Mr. Moonves had misled the company about multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and that he had tried to hide evidence in a frenzied attempt to save his legacy.
“His willful and material misfeasance, violation of company policies and breach of his employment contract” led to his dismissal, the board said at the time.
After discussing Mr. Moonves’s case over several days, the board reached its conclusion based on an investigation conducted by two outside law firms. Mr. Moonves “engaged in multiple acts of serious nonconsensual sexual misconduct in and outside of the workplace, both before and after he came to CBS in 1995,” according to a late November draft of the investigators’ report reviewed by The New York Times.
The board was unequivocal in firing Mr. Moonves. He has denied the allegations and said any sexual contact with the women was consensual.
CBS could settle with Mr. Moonves, but that could create a public-relations nightmare for a network that has undergone a companywide reckoning in the wake of the #MeToo movement. In addition to Mr. Moonves, Charlie Rose was fired from his roles at “CBS This Morning” and “60 Minutes” in 2017 after allegations of sexual misconduct. Days after Mr. Moonves left the network, Jeff Fager, the longtime executive producer of “60 Minutes,” was fired after he threatened a colleague who was asking about allegations of harassment against him. The network also paid a $9.5 million settlement to the actress Eliza Dushku after she claimed she had been written off the series “Bull” because she confronted Michael Weatherly, the show’s star, about harassing her on the set.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-arbitration.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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