I don't know what to make of the following, which I just received, but I strongly advise that it be perused with suspicion. If it is a hoax (please note that the letter linked to dates back to July 2015), all I can do it apologize for posting it, but—unable to verify its content at 1 o'clock in the morning, I decided to put it up. I hope it is an exaggeration of bits and pieces that have reached my ears over the past few months, but if it is true, the timing is certainly odd, for it comes when WBAI's dire financial situation has left it wavering on the edge of an abyss.
WBAI has always attracted individuals with mental problems, people who for one reason or another harbor extreme bitterness and hatred. This piece strikes me as not passing the smell test, but—given that this is WBAI and that the so-called "family" is anything but that, there might be some truth to the allegations. If nothing else, it tells us what kind of people are lurking out there.
Dear Pacifica Supporter –
This is a story it hurts my stomach to send out. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to get Pacifica management to investigate the charges alleged below, the only option left is public exposure.
================================================================
Is Pacifica Radio about to face its
own Harvey Weinstein moment?
The answer is no – it’s going to be much worse.
By Steve Brown
Former Director of the Pacifica Radio Foundation
By now, everyone in America knows that nice guys often do nasty things to women. Even at Pacifica Radio. Or rather, especially at Pacifica Radio, where the biggest cash drain of the past decade (second only to salaries) has been to fight off a flood of sexual harassment lawsuits. Pacifica lost every one of those lawsuits, hemorrhaging millions of dollars in lawyers’ fees, court costs, fines, penalties and settlements that it could ill afford. But those lawsuits pale in comparison to a new sexual harassment lawsuit that is about to be filed, which will hit Pacifica like a bombshell.
Actually, calling it a sexual harassment lawsuit is to abuse the English language. Because the word “harassment” is laughably inadequate. A more accurate word would be “sick.” Very sick. In fact, the violent abuse and sadistic sexual behavior alleged by the plaintiff might well have been lifted from the screenplay for Silence of the Lambs or The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre.
Since the lawsuit has not been officially filed, I’m not at liberty to reveal the name of the plaintiff or the alleged sexual abuser. But I can reveal this. Over 100 women may be involved, and their chilling accounts of violence and sexual abuse by a Pacifica staff member could make the charges against Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Russell Simmons, Tavis Smiley, Al Franken, Charlie Rose and so many other high-profile sexual predators sound like a Shirley Temple pajama party. Plaintiff’s testimony will allege bloody beatings, ritual torture, forced acts of sexual humiliation, and brutal serial rape that went on for years.
Although hearing those gruesome details shocked me, I was even more shocked to learn that the alleged perpetrator was one of the most popular and beloved broadcasters on Pacifica’s airwaves – and someone whom I had known personally for over 20 years.
The saddest part of this potentially devastating lawsuit is: it could have been avoided, as virtually all of Pacifica’s costly sexual lawsuits could have been avoided, had management simply paid attention to the women who came to them, honestly investigated their charges, and (if verified) disciplined and/or discharged the offenders. Instead, management ignored or denied the charges, ridiculed the women and, in some cases, even participated in a cover-up of the incidents. That is what happened in this case. Pacifica’s officers and board members willfully closed their eyes. They made a deliberate decision to look the other way, and do nothing.
As a former director of the foundation, I can state this as a fact, from personal knowledge.
Approximately four years ago, in 2013, Pacifica’s then-Executive Director, Summer Reese, together with one of Pacifica’s local station managers [name withheld], were made aware of allegations that a female staff member had been tortured and raped, repeatedly, by one of Pacifica’s male staff members. The abuse had gone on for years, but the woman had kept silent.. She was fearful of going public, she said, partly out of shame, but also because her rapist had pressed a gun to her head and boasted that his father was a high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia, who would murder her and her children if she went to the police. Having been born and raised in Sicily, the woman did not view this as an empty threat, but as a chilling reality she had witnessed all too often during her childhood.
Eventually, the woman could no longer handle this abusive situation and fled to her native Italy, giving up her career and tearfully leaving her two young children with friends. Shortly thereafter, she suffered a stroke and later underwent an operation for a brain tumor. When she returned to the U.S., she was an invalid, penniless and homeless. According to another Pacifica broadcaster, Gary Null, who had known her for many years, and who has been a broadcaster on Pacifica stations WBAI, WPFW, and KPFK since 1976, the woman had a brilliant mind and a flourishing career as an emotional health counselor. She was also a model of healthy living. However, once the physical and sexual abuse occurred, she started to withdraw socially, became increasingly isolated, and slowly began to deteriorate both emotionally and physically. It was only after she returned to the U.S., and Null asked her why she had disappeared so mysteriously, that she told him her story.
Although the woman was still terrified of revealing what had happened to her, Null finally persuaded her, in 2013, to tell her story to Pacifica management. To that end, Null set up a three-way phone conference between the woman and the two Pacifica executives noted above: Executive Director Summer Reese and the local station manager. (This phone conference was witnessed by one or more Pacifica staff members.) During the call, the woman spoke not only of her own victimization, but revealed that the accused staff member had also victimized many other women, most of them psychologically fragile and therefore vulnerable. He accomplished this through his Pacifica program. By promising them help on the air, he was able to lure numerous women to his office, where he then tortured and raped them. As far as she knew, said the woman, this behavior was still going on. She said that the man had tortured and raped more than 100 women in this manner over a period of many years.
Yet neither Executive Director Reese nor the local station manager would take steps to investigate the woman’s allegations. This not only broke the law (which requires that companies promptly investigate all charges of sexual harassment and abuse), it also permitted the alleged perpetrator to continue using Pacifica’s airwaves to facilitate his sexual abuse of women. When Null urged Reese and the station manager to investigate the charges, the station manager told him that he wasn’t going to rock the boat “because [the accused staff member] brings in big money during fund drives.”
Ignored and rebuffed by management, the woman (still deathly afraid of her abuser) remained silent until May of 2015, at which time Null revealed her story to me privately. I was at that time a member of Pacifica’s national board of directors, and Null asked me to try, once again, to have management conduct an investigation into the woman’s charges of sexual abuse. I immediately contacted the woman and persuaded her to repeat her story to me. She did so, but begged me not to publicize it because she was still afraid that she and her children would be murdered if she spoke out or went to the police.
I quickly contacted Pacifica’s new executive director, John Proffit, and arranged to meet him privately in Los Angeles, during Pacifica’s annual board meeting, in June of 2015.. At our meeting I emphasized Pacifica’s moral and legal obligation to investigate the alleged abuses as rapidly as possible – and, if verified, prevent them from continuing. There was also a very great risk to Pacifica itself – in terms of public humiliation and loss of credibility, on the one hand, and a flood of financially crippling lawsuits, from as many as a hundred or more women, on the other.
Astonishingly, however, Proffit did nothing. He did not contact the woman, did not investigate her charges, did not even tell board members about the potential tsunami that threatened to drown the entire foundation. After several fruitless emails to Proffit, I finally sent a letter to all my co-members on the national board, alerting them to the charges and urging them to act, while there was still time. However, they, too, chose to do nothing. As did Profitt’s successor as Executive Director, Margy Wilkinson. [You can read a copy of my letter to Pacifica’s board members HERE ; names and details that might identify the woman and her alleged rapist have been redacted.]
For the next two years, despite many appeals, Pacifica continued to ignore the woman’s charges. But hopefully, a few months ago -- for a brief moment -- it seemed as if that was about to change. The current executive director of Pacifica, Bill Crosier, whom I know to be both sensible and sensitive, had agreed to meet personally with the woman, hear her story, and take whatever steps were necessary to address her charges. I believe that this would have satisfied her. She was not seeking to sue anyone, least of all Pacifica, whose mission she supports. Instead, what she really sought was emotional closure after so many years of pain and shame. She wanted her ordeal to be acknowledged -- and regretted -- not ignored and covered up. Most of all, she wanted to make sure that what happened to her could never happen to anyone else at Pacifica.
Sadly, the promised meeting with Crosier never took place. The woman was simply fobbed off with a brief phone call, in which Crosier said only that he was “sorry for the ordeal she had undergone.” Nothing more. No promise of an investigation to verify (or not) her allegations. And no promise of new policies to protect Pacifica’s female personnel from sexual abuse in the future.
Surely this was a pitiful response, in light of the long history of sexual abuse that has characterized Pacifica’s five stations for over a decade. But it was not an untypical response, since, to my knowledge, not a single sexual predator at Pacifica has ever been properly disciplined or fired. Even the ones who did leave the network, often did so on their own terms, with a golden parachute in the form of a large cash reward, and the expectation of a total cover-up.
Small wonder, then, that the woman finally stopped hoping that Pacifica would live up to its principles. Instead, like so many other Pacifica women before her, she has retained legal counsel and is prepared to file a lawsuit – which, given Pacifica’s always precarious finances, could be the final nail in its coffin.
You may, of course, be curious about one thing:
Why is the woman no longer afraid of bringing a lawsuit – that is, of going public? Doesn’t she fear that her public (and sure-to-be-sensational) lawsuit will trigger her alleged abuser into murdering her and her children? The answer is no. She is no longer afraid (for reasons I am not permitted to reveal at this time). But that means it is now Pacifica’s turn to be afraid. Very afraid.
After all, the law is very clear: When a claim of sexual harassment is made known to the management of any U.S. corporation, federal statutes require that an immediate investigation be conducted to discover whether the allegations have merit. If they do, then prompt and appropriate action must be taken by management to discipline and/or fire the predator and arrive at an appropriate resolution with the victim, whether by public apology or financial compensation, or both. Failure of management – which includes both executive management and the board of directors -- to follow the legally required procedures could make them liable to charges of gross negligence. This could subject them to enormous personalfines and penalties, which directors’ liability policies do not cover. (Not that Pacifica even has a directors’ liability policy any more, since it is my understanding that its liability insurance has either lapsed, for non-payment of premiums, or been rejected because of the foundation’s many sexual harassment lawsuits.)
Unhappily, Pacifica’s options are fast vanishing. Its chances of avoiding this multi-million dollar lawsuit, let alone of winning it, are close to zero. (I have been told about some of the plaintiff’s evidence, and it appears to be dispositive.) But even at this late date, there may be some hope for Pacifica, a slim possibility that – perhaps for the first time in its history – it might try defusing a potential crisis before it happens, instead of sticking its head in the sand until it explodes. Which means:
- Calling an emergency session of the board to address the woman’s charges of sexual abuse (management has not even told the board that such charges have been made)
- Retaining counsel with experience in mediation and dispute resolution (since the plaintiff is not seeking revenge, but emotional closure)
- Presenting the alleged victim with a good faith proposal for psychological healing as well as a fair financial settlement (if counsel finds that appropriate)Setting up a ‘Sexual Abuse Committee’ of board members with a mission statement designed to prevent future incidents (and lawsuits)
- Initiating sexual awareness training at all levels within Pacifica
I will add this final thought: If Pacifica thinks its current financial situation is bad (it just lost a court judgment for $1.8 million, plus legal costs, and its donor base has fallen from 110,000 in 2012 to less than 56,000 in 2017), imagine how bad its finances will be after losing a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of 100 or more women who will testify that they were tortured and raped by a Pacifica staff member -- whose alleged behavior Pacifica management took no steps even to investigate, let alone to stop.
Pacifica radio is too valuable a resource to lose. It is the only remaining independent radio network in America, whose five FM stations, in the country’s leading media centers (WBAI in New York; WPFW in Washington, DC; KPFT in Houston; KPFK in Los Angeles; and KPFA in San Francisco/Berkeley) are capable of reaching more than half the population of the United States. But this lawsuit could bring down the whole network. That is why, after unsuccessfully exhausting every internal avenue of appeal to management, I find I have no other option but to bring this matter before the entire Pacifica community (from which it has so far been kept secret) and hope that their tens of thousands of outraged letters, emails and phone calls will convince an apparently suicidal management to step back from the edge of the precipice and begin to act responsibly.
Before sending out this story, I sent copy to Pacifica’s executive director. I said that I had received assurances from the woman and her lawyer that she would delay proceeding with her lawsuit (and I would not send out this story) if the executive director would contact her within 48 hours. However, no response was forthcoming from the executive director. That is why you are now reading this story, and why, sometime soon, this lawsuit will be filed, with (according to the lawyers involved, press conferences called in all five of Pacifica’s radio station cities: New York, Washington, DC, Houston, Los Angeles, and Berkeley/San Francisco).
Stephen M Brown
