NEW YORK--Three women filed a sexual harassment lawsuit on Friday against former CBS News television anchor Charlie Rose, accusing the prominent journalist of touching them inappropriately and making offensive comments.
The lawsuit in New York state court appears to be the first brought against Rose alleging sexual misconduct since he was fired from the network last fall following a Washington Post report that he had harassed eight women. CBS News is also named as a defendant.
Rose, a co-host on CBS This Morning and a correspondent for the network's flagship Sunday night news programme "60 Minutes," is among numerous men in politics, business and the entertainment industry who have seen their careers implode following allegations of sexual misconduct, fueling the social media #MeToo movement in the past few months. In addition to CBS, both PBS and Bloomberg, which had aired the "Charlie Rose" show, severed their relationships with the 76-year-old.
The lawsuit came one day after the Washington Post published an investigative story that reported an additional 27 women, including 14 CBS News employees, had accused Rose of harassment. The newspaper also reported that CBS managers were warned of Rose's conduct at least three times over a period of 30 years.
In response, the Post wrote, CBS News said in a statement that it had worked to strengthen protections for employees in the wake of the Rose scandal but could not "corroborate or confirm many of the situations described" in the new report.
Rose could not immediately be reached for comment. He called the latest Washington Post story "unfair and inaccurate," according to the newspaper.
The plaintiffs in Friday's lawsuit - Katherine Harris, Sydney McNeal and Yuqing Wei – worked in different capacities for Rose last year while he was a co-host for CBS This Morning, according to the complaint. It was not immediately clear if the women were among the accusers described in the Post's reporting.
