Following the exits of CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and “60 Minutes” boss Jeff Fager, an outside investigation has found that CBS has paid more than $5 million as part of a settlement with a woman who accused “60 Minutes” series creator Don Hewitt of sexual assault.
On Thursday, the New York Times published pieces of a draft report from the investigation, which was launched by the CBS board to look into the company’s workplace culture following multiple accusations of sexual misconduct by Moonves and at “60 Minutes.”
One of the report’s revelations was that CBS reached a settlement with a woman who said Hewitt, who created the show in 1968 and died in 2009 after handing over the reins to Fager, “sexually assaulted her on repeated occasions and destroyed her career.”
According to the Times, the settlement was first reached more than 20 years ago when the company determined that “her allegations were credible,” and it has since paid out more than $5 million in total in exchange for the unnamed woman’s silence.
Representatives for CBS and CBS News did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
According to the Times, the investigation also found that the success of “60 Minutes” and its independence from the rest of CBS News “permitted misconduct by some ’60 Minutes’ employees,” including former senior producer Michael Radutzky and current producer Ira Rosen.
Fager was fired in September following a New Yorker report in which he was accused of groping a former intern at a party and turning a blind eye toward sexual misconduct by his employees. Fager later said he was fired for sending a threatening text message to a reporter who asked for his comment on the allegations.
“We note that the misconduct of individual ’60 Minutes’ employees, including Mr. Fager and Mr. Rosen, should not have been tolerated, but we find that it was not as severe as the media accounts or as severe as the sexual misconduct that occurred during the Don Hewitt era at ’60 Minutes,’” the draft report said, according to the Times.
A representative for Fager also did not return TheWrap’s request for comment.