Dr. Anne Peters told the CBS lawyers that Mr. Moonves assaulted her in 1999. According to the report, she said that she warned Mr. Kopelson not to join the board, citing the alleged assault. “She recalls Kopelson responding that the incident had happened a long time ago and was trivial, and said, in effect, ‘we all did that,’” according to the report.
Mr. Kopelson, who died in October, became one of Mr. Moonves’s staunchest supporters on the board. As the #MeToo movement gained momentum, Dr. Peters and a friend urged Mr. Kopelson to publicly disclose the alleged 1999 assault. The lawyers’ report found that “there is no evidence that Kopelson, whom we were unable to interview before he passed away, told anyone on the CBS Board about the incident, spoke to Moonves about it or otherwise did anything with the information.”
On the board, Mr. Kopelson continued to defend Mr. Moonves. “I don’t care if 30 more women come forward and allege this kind of stuff,” Mr. Kopelson said in a board meeting this summer. “Les is our leader and it wouldn’t change my opinion of him.”
Dr. Peters didn’t respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
4. A secret resignation letter was drafted for Moonves
Gil Schwartz, the longtime head of communications at CBS, had known since late 2017 about some of the sexual assaults that Mr. Moonves had been accused of committing, according to the report. Mr. Schwartz learned about the episode involving Dr. Peters in August, shortly before it became public in a Vanity Fair article. The report said that after discussing the matter with Mr. Moonves, Mr. Schwartz drafted a resignation letter for the chief executive, but Mr. Moonves didn’t sign it. Mr. Schwartz didn’t tell the board, the report said.
It wouldn’t be until the following month that Mr. Moonves stepped down from CBS. Mr. Schwartz also left the company in September.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/business/les-moonves-cbs-report-takeaways.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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