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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (453955)	11/1/2011 9:48:16 AM
From: goldworldnet	6 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793970

Another poster writes: fgjh Such a settlement is common. I was at a job back in the 90's where a woman raised a sexual harassment complaint against one of the execs. She claimed that he had propositioned her repeatedly and despite her trying to get him to stop. She even had a witness: another employee she worked with who said he saw the whole thing. The exec’s ethics had been unimpeachable up until then, while she had a reputation for being deceitful and manipulative. But given the situation, she was given a “five figure settlement” and she and the witness left the company. Only, we all knew the complaint was bullshit from the start, and here’s why. As a corporate policy, IT logged AOL Instant Messenger traffic sent from company computers. They had her on record plotting with the witness to fake the whole thing: including her asking the witness to lie, explaining how they could get a settlement, and how they could fake the whole thing risk-free. Why didn’t we prosecute? The execs wanted to avoid litigation. A scandal would be distracting, win or lose. The lawyers would be expensive. The sexual harassment law in those days was draconian– making it very hard to win even when all the evidence is on your side. And what do we get if we do win? (Fun fact: I found out later that the fake witness never did get his cut of the settlement. After the dot com crash she went into real estate and sold subprime mortgages. Heh. I’m not making this up.) So “five figure settlements” are not unusual even when it’s transparent fraud. A lawsuit, even a sure thing, is expensive and distracting. A small operation would much rather pay out what amounts to a small fraction of the legal fees that you pay even if you win. Especially a lobbying organization that doesn’t want that kind of media attention. November 1, 2011 - 3:39 am pjmedia.com * * *