2 Women Who Settled With O’Reilly Over Sexual Harassment Sue for Defamation
The women are Andrea Mackris, a former producer on Mr. O’Reilly’s show on Fox News who sued him for sexual harassment in 2004,
and Rebecca Gomez Diamond, a former host on Fox Business Network who reached a settlement with Mr. O’Reilly in 2011 after coming forward with sexual harassment allegations against him.
“In fact,” states the lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, “he mistreated both Ms. Mackris
and Ms. Diamond and he is well aware of the irrefutable evidence of his harassment, abuse and mistreatment which caused him to settle their legal claims.”
“They are tired of being smeared with lies by a bully who thinks
that his victims are afraid to answer to them,” Nancy Erika Smith, a lawyer for the women, said in a statement.
Two women who reached sexual harassment settlements with Bill O’Reilly joined a defamation lawsuit against Mr. O’Reilly and Fox News on Wednesday, asserting
that statements that he and the network made depicted them as liars, political operatives and extortionists.
They joined a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, a former Fox News employee who reached a settlement with Fox News
and Mr. O’Reilly in July 2002 after she repeatedly complained about his behavior to the network’s human resources department and other executives.
Since the public exposure of those agreements and the allegations against him, Mr. O’Reilly has said
that the claims that led to his ouster from Fox News in April have no merit, that he “never mistreated anyone,” that he was the victim of a “political and financial hit job,” that his fame had made him a target and that he “put to rest any controversies to spare” his children.